PS 

Z070 



A^ria 



L 



No.174-175. 







:^ ==3;: i: - ir:^ i . r - i t a (==» c=ssp CSKa «=::) csrm er^ia s 



^1 



i 



E=3~-i:3^J^i— T~f-li-P=!—[-Ti— 1-^ 



r 






■"=•1 



MAYNARD'S 

English • Classic • Series 






miESJO'mMiERi 



Washington Irving. 



^ 



sE 



^ 



(ffarMti :is;j"<^ tssui 



p 



KEW YORK 

Maynard, Merrill 6c Co. 

43,45 & 47 East 102 St. 



li 



IF' 

V! 

i) 



1 




IaiiffigiMc8 24cts. 



ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, 

FOR 

Classes in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, ete« 

EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 

Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author^ s Life^ Prefatory and 
Explanatory Notes^ etc., etc. 



1 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. 

(Cantos I. and II.) 
3 Milton's L' Allegro, and II Pen- 
seroso. 

3 liord Bacon's !Essays, Civil and 

Moral. (Selected.) 

4 Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 

5 Moore's Fire Worshippers. 

(Lalla Rookh. Selected.) 

6 Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 

7 Scott's 

from Ci 

8 Scott's L 

(Introdi 

9 Burns'sr 

and oth 

10 Crabbe'i 

11 Campbe 

(Abridg 

12 Macaula 

• Pilgrii 

13 Macaula 

Poems. 

14 Shakesp 

nice. 
III.,anc 

15 Goldsmi 

16 Hogg's i 

meny. 

17 Colerid^ 



31 Irving's Sketch Book. (Selec- 

tions.) 

32 Dickens's Christmas Carol. 

(Condensed.) 

33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. 

■ (Condensed.) 

35 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- 

field. (Condensed.) 

36 Tennyson's The Two Voices, 
^3Lir Women. 

s. 



LIBRARWOF CONGRESS. 



@^pES ^mm¥ 1o.2.q?4 

Shelf.. 



UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



18 Addison's sir Koger ti« 'uoverjr- 

ley. 

19 Gray's Elegy in a Country 

Churchyard. 

30 Scott^s liady of the liake. (Canto 

31 Shakespeare's As You Like It, 

etc. (Selections.) 
33 Shakespeare's King John, and 
Richard II. (Selections.) 

33 Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- 

ry V., Henry VI. (Selections.) 

34 Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and 

Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 

35 Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 

36 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 

37 Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos 

I. and II.) 

38 Cowper's Task. (Book I.) 

39 Milton's Comus. 
30 Tennyson's Enoch Arden, Th'b 

Lotus Eaters, Ulysses, and 
Tithonus. 



,<?r's Feast, 

. Agnes. 
i«epy Hol- 

bm Shake- 
Teach Kead- 
' Hill Ora- 

tho^pist. A 

ation. 
and Hymn 

sis, and other 

Painters* 



«j5^xiuSH:in's — larouert . 
(Selections.) 

49 The Shakespeare Speaker. 

60 Thackeray's Koundabout Pa- 
pers. 

51 Webster's Oration on Adams 
and Jefferson. 

53 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 

53 Morris's Life and Death of 
Jason. 

54 Burke's Speech QB American 
Taxation. 

55 Pope's Rape of the Lock. 

56 Tennyson's Elaine. ' 

57 Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

58 Church's Story of the ^neid. 

59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 

60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to 
Lilliput. 

61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- 
con. (Condensed.) 

63 The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- 
lish Version by Rev. R. Potter ,M. A. 

(Additional numbers on next page.) 



ENGLrsH Classic Series-continued. 



63 The Antigone of Sophocles. 

English Version by Thos. Franck- 
lin, D.D. 

64 Blizabeth Barrett Browning^. 

(Selected Poems.) • 

65 Robert Browning, (Selected 

Poems.) 

66 Addison's Spectator. (Selec^ns.) 

67 Scenes from George Xiliot's 

Adam Bede. 

68 Matthew Arnold's Culture and 
Anarchy. 

69 DeQuincey's Joan of Arc. 

70 Carlyle's JSssay on Burns. 

71 Byron's Childe Harold's Pil« 

grimage. 
7/5 Poe*8 Raven, and other Poems. 
73 & 74 Macaulay*s liord CliTe. 

(Double Number. ) 

75 Webster's Reply to Hayne. 

76 & 77 Macaulay's r^ays of An- 

cient Rome. (Double Number.) 

78 American Patriotic Selections: 

Declaration of Independence, 
Washj' gton's Farewell Ad- 
dress Lincoln's Gettysburg 
Speet I etc. 

79 & 80 Sc. t's liady of the I<ake. 

(Conden. ed.) 
81 & S2 Scott's Marmion. (Con- 

densed.) 
83 & 84 Pope's Essay on Man. 

85 Shelley's Skylark, Adonals, and 

other Poems. 

86 Dickens's Cricket on the< 
Hearth. 

87 Spencer's Philosophy of Style* 

88 Lamb's Essays of £lia. 

89 Cowper's Task, Book II. 

90 Wordsworth's Selected Poems« 

91 Tennyson's The Holy Grail, and 

Sir Galahad. 
93 Addison's Cato. 

93 Irving's Westminster Abbey, 

and Christmas Sketches. 

94 & 95 Macaulay's £arl .of Chat« 

ham. Second Essay." 

96 Early English Ballads. 

97 Skelton, Wyatt, and Surrey* 

(Selected Poems.) 

98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected Poems.) 

99 C ax ton and Daniel. (Selections.) 

100 Fuller and Hooker, (^elections.) 

101 Marlowe's Jew of Malta. (Con- 

densed.) 

103-103 Macaulay's Essay on Mil- 
ton. 

104-105 Macaulay's Essay on Ad- 
dison. 

106 Macaulay's Essay on Boa- 
well's Johnson. 



107 Mandeville's Travels and Wy- 
cliffe's Bible. (Selections.) 

108-109 Macaulay's Essay on Fred- 
erick the Great. 

110-111 Milton's Samson Agonis- 
tes. ' 

113-113-114 Franklin's Autobiog- 
raphy. 

115-116 Herodotus's Stories of 
CrcBsus, Cyrus, and Babylon. - 

117 Irving' 8 Alhambra. 

118 Burke's Present Discontents. 

119 Burke's Speech on Concilia- 

tion \irith American Colonies. 
130 Macaulay's Essay on Byron. 
131-133 Motley's Peter the Great. 

133 Emerson's American Scholar. 

134 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. 
135-136 liongfellow's Evangeline. 

137 Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales. 

(Selected.) 

138 Tennyson's The Coming of 
Arthur, and The Passing of 
Arthur. 

139 I.O well's The Vision of Sir 
liaunfal, and other Poems. 

130 Whittier's Songs of I«abor, and 

othen Poems. 

131 Words of Abraham liincoln. 
133 Grimm's German Fairy Tales* 

(Selected.) 

133 JEsop's Fables. (Selected ») 

134 Arabian Nights. Aladdin, or 
the Wonderful Lamp. 

135-36 The Psalter. 

137-38 Scott's Ivanhoe. (Con-, 
densed.) 

139-40 Scott's Kenilworth. (Con- 
densed.) 

141-43 Scott's The Talisman. (Con- 
densed.) 

143 Gods and Heroes of the North. 

144-45 Pope's Iliad of Homer. 
(Selections from Books I.-VIII.) 

146 Four Mediaeval Chroniclers. 

147 Dante's Inferno. (Condensed.) 
148-49 The Book of Job. (Revised 

Version.) ^ 

150 Bow- Wow and Mew-Mew. By 
Georgiana M. Craik. 

151 The Niirnberg Stove. By Ouida. 
163 Hayne's Speech. To which 

Webster replied. 
153 Alice's Adventures in Won- 
derland, (Condensed.) By Lewis 
Carroll. 
154-155 Defoe's Journal of the 

Plague. (Condensed.) 
156-167 More's Utopia. (Con- 
densed.) 



ADDITIONAL NUMBERS ON NEXT PAGE. 



MAYNARD^S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.— No. 174-175 



TALES OF A TRAVELER 



[SELECTED' 



fiV 



WASHINGTON IRVING 



I am neither your minotaure, nor your centaure, nor your satyr, nor your hysena, 
nor your babion, but your meer traveler, believe me. — Ben Jonson. 



"Waitb asiofltapbical Sftetcb anO Biplanators ViQXzz 




NOV y .ii9S 



NEW YORK 
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. 



^ 



ts-^^v^^ 



A Complete Course in the Study of English. 



spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature. 



Reed's Word Lessons— A Complete Speller. 
Reed's Introductory Language Work. 

Reed & Keliogg's Graded Lessons in En^glish. 
Reed & Keliogg's Higher Lessons in English. 

Reed & Rellogg's One-Book Course in English. 
Kellogg & Reed's Word Building. 

Kellogg & Reed's The English Language, 
Keliogg's Text-Book on Rhetoric. 
Keliogg's Illustrations of Style. 

Keliogg's Text-Book on English Literature. 



In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object 
clearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language as 
to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to 
the study of English Literature, The troublesome contradictions 
which arise in using books arranged by different authors on these 
subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the school- 
room, will be avoided by the use of the above '' Complete Course." 

Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. 

MaYNARD, Merrill, & Co., Publishers, 

43, 45, and 47 East Tenth St., New York. 



Copyright, 1895, by Maynard, Merrill, & Co. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Washington Irving was born in New York, April 3, 1783, 
tlie year, in which the British troops withdrew from the city. A 
few months after, General Washington marched in with the Conti- 
nental army, and the patriotic mother said : ** Washington's v»^ork 
as now ended, and the child shall be named after him." When 
Washington was again in New York as first President, the child's 
enthusiastic Scotch nurse followed the hero into a shop one day 
and presented his young namesake. ** Please, your honor," said 
liizzie, *' here's a bairn was named after you." The great man 
gently touched the boy's head and bestowed a blessing upon his 
future biographer. 

Irving's early education was unsystematic and limited, being 
guided mainly by his own inclinations, which were opposed to the 
rigors of regular study and instruction. He read widely, es- 
pecially books of travel and adventure, and amused himself 
with the composition of juvenile poems and plays. At sixteen his 
;school-day^ were over and he entered a law office, but he had no 
taste for the profession and his reading was more in books of 
poetry and romance than in books of law. His most congenial 
•occupations during these years were converse with good literature 
.and good society, day-dreaming, and wandering along the banks 
of the Hudson, gathering its legendary lore, by which he was soon 
to make this region classic ground. With what interest and ad- 
miration he read Addison's " Spectator " is shown by his first ven- 
ture as an author, when nineteen years old, a series of critical and 
humorous letters in his brother's paper, the '* Morning Chronicle," 
signed *' Jonathan Oldstyle." In 1804, for this benefit of his 
health, which had always been delicate, he was sent abroad. He 
spent some time in France, learned the language, visited Sicily, 
enjoying an adventure with pirates on the way, and remained' 
several weeks in Rome, drinking in the wonderful influences of 
music and painting, arts that were kindred to his nature and 
tastes. While here he became acquainted with the painter Wash- 



IV INTRODUCTIOlSr. 

ington A^llston, who nearly persuaded him to abandon law and 
letters and become an artist. 

On his return to America he was admitted to the bar, but to be a 
*' champion at the tea-parties " was more agreeable to him than to 
be a pleader of causes in a dirty court-room. A graceful manner, 
a refined taste, and a ready humor made him everywhere a favorite 
in society. Kis clioice of literature as a profession was practi- 
cally determined when, in 1806, he published, in conjunction with 
his brother and his friend Paulding, the ''Salmagundi" papers, 
brilliant and successful periodical essays in the manner of the 
''Spectator" and Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World." Three 
years later appeared his first permanent work, that masterpiece 
of delicious and perennial humor, " Knickerbocker's History of 
New York." The book was remarkably successful, both at home 
and abroad. Sir Walter Scott wrote: " I have never read any- 
thing so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals 
of Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few 
evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are 
our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laugh- 
ing." While engaged upon this book he suffered a crushing be- 
reavement in the death of Miss Matilda Hoffman, to whom he was 
soon to be married. The anguish of this event colored his whole 
subsequent life and writing. It "seemed," he once said, "to 
give a turn to my whole character and throw some clouds into 
my disposition which have ever since hung about it." 

In 1815 Irving again went to Europe, intending only a brief 
visit m the interests of his brother's business, but the visit was 
prolonged to seventeen years. Several years were spent in Eng- 
land, where he was associated with the most distinguished people 
in literature and society. The poets Southey, Moore, Campbell,, 
and Rogers were his friends ; to the happy days spent in the 
family of Sir Walter Scott we owe the charming " Recollections, 
of Abbotsford ;" and in the Red Horse Inn at Stratford are still 
preserved the mementos of his pilgrimage to the shrine of Shak- 
*spere, with which the whole world is now familiar through his 
delightful descriptions. In England he wrote the ' ' Sketch Book," 
the first number of which was published in JNew York in l819, 
introducing to the world the immortal 'Rip Van Winkle." It 
was soon republished in Liondon, and made him famous in two 



IKTRODITCTIO]^. V 

continents. ** Geoffrey Crayon is tlie most fashionable fellow of tlie 
day," said the painter Leslie. '' His Crayon — I know it by 
heart," said Lord Byron ; '*his writings are my delight." Even 
the great reviewers of the time, who did not credit America 
with the ability to produce a work of genius, were loud in his 
praise. The ''Sketch Book" was the first link in the bond of 
literary sympathy that was to reunite England and America. It 
was followed by " Bracebridge Hall " and '' Tales of a Traveler," 
in the same general style. 

After a brief sojourn in Germany and France, Irving went, in 
1826, to Spain, where he remained three years, working upon his 
**Life of Columbus." The labor resulted also in three other 
books of imperishable beauty and interest, " The Alhambra," the 
''Conquest of Granada," and the "Legends of the Conquest of 
Spain." While there he received unexpectedly the appointment 
of Secretary of Legation to the court of St. James, and in 1830 
he resumed his residence in England. His "Columbus" had 
just appeared from the press, and honors of every kind now 
poured in upon him. From the Royal Society of Literature he 
received the gold medal of King George, and from the University 
of Oxford the degree of D.C.L., which title, however, his mod- 
esty never permitted him to use. Two years later he returned to 
America, and met with an overwhelming reception from his ad- 
miring countrymen. 

He now purchased a home in the midst of his old haunts on the 
banks of the Hudson. Here in the pretty cottage called " Sunny- 
side" — soon overrun with English ivy, from a slip from Melrose 
Abbey — he gathered about him his family of brothers, nephews, 
and nieces, who, owing to business disaster, were largely dependent 
upon him for support. Ten happy years were here spent in literary 
labor, resulting in the " Tour on the Prairies," a book that is still 
one of the best records of adventure in the wild West, "Astoria," 
"Recollections of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," "Captain 
Bonneville," " Wolfert's Roost," "Life of Goldsmith," and 
* ' Mahomet and his Successors. " He was already engaged upon his 
great work, the "Life of Washington," when, on the recommen- 
dation of Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, he was appointed 
Minister to Spain, an appointment eminently fitting, and accepta- 
ble to both nations. But the life of courts and palaces had lost 



VI INTRODUCTIOIT. 

its charms for him. In 1845 he writes : *' I long to be once mot^ 
back at dear little Sunnyside, while I have yet strength and good 
spirits to enjoy the simple pleasures of the country, and to rally 
a happy family group once more about me. I grudge every year 
of absence that rolls by. To-morrow is my birthday. I shall then 
be sixty-two years old. The evening of life is fast drawing over 
me ; still I hope to get back among my friends while there is a 
little sunshine left." The following year *'the impatient long- 
ing of his heart was gratified," says his biographer, ''and he 
found himself restored to his home for the thirteen years of happy 
life still remaining to him." In these last years he enjoyed in 
full measure ' ' that which should accompany old age, as honor, 
love, obedience, troops of friends." His life's work was fittingly 
rounded with the publication of his " Washington." He lived to 
see the last volume issue from the press and to hear the voice of 
universal praise. Death came at the close of a beautiful Indian- 
summer day, November 28, 1859, and he was buried near Sleepy 
Hollow, amid the scenes loved by him through life and made 
memorable forever by his magic pen. 

The personality of Irving is one of the most lovable in all our 
literature, and this personality is embodied with remarkable full- 
ness in his writings. The grace of language, the chaste and 
noble thought, the touches of idealism and romance, the chival- 
rous regard for pure womanhood, the genial humor, the tender- 
ness, sympathy, and pathos that characterize all his books, were 
qualities of his daily life. Says William Cullen Bryant: ''He 
was ever ready to do kind offices ; tender of the feelings of others; 
carefully just, but ever leaning toward the merciful side of 
justice ; averse to strife ; and so modest that the world never 
ceased to wonder how it should have happened that one so much 
praised should have gained so little assurance." The presence of 
this gracious personality in his books is always a refining and 
beneficent influence ; no one reads them without being made hap- 
pier and better. 

His mind was not philosophical or profound, and he did not 
discuss in his works the deeper problems of human life and 
destiny. Happiness, truth, nobility, and faith were the funda- 
mental principles of his philosophy. The ideal and spiritual 
simplicity of his works presents a wholesome protest against the 



INTRODUCTION. ^H 

feverish unrest and sordid materialism of tlie literature of tlie 
present day. His thoughts turned naturally to the past ; his im- 
agination dwelt most contentedly in the fields of history, tradi- 
tion, and romance. The air of enchantment in Moorish Spain 
was an inspiration to him. Mellow England, grown old in his- 
tory and song, was always dear to him. But there was a past in 
American history that he loved equally well. He did for his 
native land what Scott did for Scotland, investing the region of 
the Hudson with an atmosphere of romance and poetry as dis- 
tinct and national as that which rests upon the Tweed and the 
banks and braes of Yarrow. 

While studying the following selections, pupils should be per- 
mitted to read some historical account of the Moorish occupation 
of Spain, such as Stanley Lane-Poole's '^ Story of the Moors in 
Spain" (Story of the Nations Series), or Charlotte M. Yonge's 
*' Christians and Moors of Spain." Prescott's *' History of Fer- 
dinand and Isabella" should be at hand, and especially the 
author's ''Conquest of Granada." Also the legends and tales 
contained in the complete edition of the '* Alhambra" should be 
read, if possible, in connection with these descriptive sketches. 
In the class-room reading the Spanish quotations may be omit=- 
ted ; the pronunciation of Spanish names offering any difficulty 
is given in the notes. An effort should be made to bring before 
the class good engravings and photographs of the Alhambra- 

For further biographical material, consult Charles Dudley War^ 
ner's ''Life of Washington Irving" (American Men of X^etters 
Series), or the more extended biography by Irving's nephew, 
Pierre Irving. Curtis's " Homes of American Authors " will add 
interesting information^ as also Bryant's oration upon Irving, in 
a volume entitled "Orations and Addresses." 

These selections comprise the greater part of the descriptive 
essays of the original work, which as arranged by Irving are dis- 
tinct from the legends and tales. They are complete in thena^ 
selves and are given without change or abridgment of the text. 
By the courteous permission of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
they are reprinted from the last editiou revised by the author. 



Critical Opinions 

In America the love and regard for Irving was a na- 
tional sentiment. It seemed to me, during a year's travel 
in the country, as if no one ever aimed a blow at Irving. 
All men held their hand from that harmless friendly 
peacemaker. I had the good fortune to see him at New 
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and re- 
marked how in every place he was honored and welcome. 
Every large city has its Irving House. The country 
takespride in the fame of its men of letters. The gate of 
his own charming little domain on the beautiful Hudson 
Eiver was forever swinging before visitors who came to 
him. He shut out no one. It was but a pretty cabin of 
a place ; the gentleman of the press who took notes of 
the place while his kind old host was sleeping, might have 
visited the whole house in a couple of minutes. Irving 
had such a small house and such narrow rooms because 
there was a great number of people to occupy them. He 
could only afford to keep one old horse (which, lazy and 
aged as it was, managed once or twice to run away with 
that careless old horseman) . Irving could only live very 
modestly because the wifeless, childless man had a num- 
ber of children to whom he was as a father. He had as 
many as nine nieces, I am told— I saw two of these ladies 
at his house— with all of whom the dear old man had 
shared the product of his labor and ^enin^.— -William 
Makepeace Thackeray, 
yiii 



CRITICAL OPINIONS ix 

The Sketch Book and the two succeeding words of Irv- 
ing, Bracebridge Hall and the Tales of a Traveler, abound 
with agreeable pictures of English life, seen under favor- 
able lights and sketched with a friendly pencil. Let me 
say here that it was not to pay court to tlie English that 
he thus described them and their country ; it was because 
he could not describe them otherwise. It was the in- 
stinct of his mind to attach itself to the contemplation of 
the good and the beautiful, wherever he found them, and 
to turn away from the sight of what was evil, misshapen 
and hateful. His was not a nature to pry for faults, or 
disabuse the world of good-natured mistakes ; he looked 
for virtue, love and truth among men, and thanked God 
that he found them in such large measure. If there are 
touches of satire in his writings, he is the best-natured and 
most amiable of satirists, amiable beyond Horace ; and 
in his irony — for there is a vein of playful irony running 
through many of his works — there is no tinge of bitter- 
ness. 

I rejoice, for my part, that we have had such a writer 
as Irving to bridge over the chasm between the two great 
nations — that an illustrious American lived so long in 
England, and was so much beloved there and sought so 
earnestly to bring the people of the two countries to a 
better understanding with each other and to wean them 
from the animosities of narrow minds. — Discourse on 
Irving by William CuUen Bryant. 



And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, 
which I cannot bring myself to exclude from a literary 
estimate, even in the face of the current gospel of art for 
art's sake. There is something that made Scott and Irv- 
ing personally loved by the millions of their readers, who 



X CRITICAL OPINIONS 

had only the dimmest ideas of their personality. This 
was some quality perceived in what they wrote. Each 
one can define it for himself. There it is, and I do not 
see why it is not as integral a part of the authors — an 
element in the estimate of their future position — as what 
we term their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or 
their art. However you rate it you cannot account for 
Irving's influence in the world without it. In his tender 
tribute to Irving, the great-hearted Thackeray, who saw 
as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art in 
the sum total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to 
Lockhart, " Be a good man, my dear." We know well 
enough that the great author of The Newcomes and the 
great author of the Heart of Midlothian recognized the 
abiding value in literature of integrity, sincerity, purity, 
charity, faith. These are beneficences ; and Irving's lit- 
erature, walk round it and measure it by whatever critical 
instruments you will, is a beneficent literature. The author 
loved good women and little children and a pure life ; he 
had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the 
lowest, without any subservience to the highest ; he re- 
tained a belief in the possibility of chivalric actions, and 
did not care to envelop them in a cynical suspicion ; he 
was an author still capable of an enthusiasm. His books 
are wholesome, full of sweetness and charm, of humor 
without any sting, of amusement without any strain ; and 
their more solid qualities are marred neither by pedantry 
nor pretension. — Charles Dudley Warner. 



For my part, I consider a story merely as a frame on 
which to stretch my materials. It is the play of thought 
and sentiment and language ; the weaving in of char- 
acters, lightly, yet expressively deliaeated ; the familiar' 



CRITICAL OPINIONS ^ xi 

and faithful exhibition of scenes in common life ; and the 
half-c'oncealed vein of humor that is often playing 
through the whole ; — these are among what I aim at and 
upon which I felicitate myself in proportion as I think I 
succeed. I have preferred adopting the mode of sketches 
and short tales rather than long works because I choose 
to take a lineof writing peculiar to myself, rather than 
fall into the manner or school of any other writer ; and 
there is a constant activity of thought and a nicety of 
execution required in writings of the kind, more than 
the world appears to imagine. It is comparatively easy 
to swell a story to any size when you have once the 
scheme and the characters in your mind : the mere in- 
terest of the story, too, carries the reader on through 
pages and pages of careless writing and the author may 
often be dull for half a volume at a time, if he has some 
striking scene at the end of it ; but in these shorter writ- 
ings, every page must have its merit. The author must 
be continually piquant ; woe to him if he makes an awk- 
ward sentence or writes a stupid page, the critics are sure 
to pounce upon it. Yet if he succeed, the very variety 
and piquancy of his writings, nay, their very brevity, 
make them frequently recurred to and when the mere in- 
terest of the story is exhausted, he begins to get credit 
for his touches of pathos or humor ; his points of wit or 
turns of language. — Letter of Irving to his friend Henry 
Brevoort, 



The Hunting-Dinner 



I WAS once at a hunting-dinner, given by a worthy 
fox-hunting old Baronet, who kept bachelor's hall in 
jovial style in an ancient rook-haunted family-man- 
sion, in one of the middle counties. He had been a 
devoted admirer of the fair sex in his younger days ; 5 
but, having traveled much, studied the sex in various 
countries with distinguished success, and returned 
home profoundly instructed, as he supposed, in the 
ways of woman, and a perfect master of the art of 
pleasing, had the mortification of being jilted by a 10 
little boarding-school girl, who was scarcely versed in 
the accidence of love. 

The Baronet was completely overcome by such an 
incredible defeat ; retired from the world in disgust ; 
put himself under the government of his housekeeper; 15 
and took to fox-hunting like a perfect Mmrod. What- 
ever poets may say to the contrary, a man will grow 
out of love as he grows old ; and a pack of fox-hounds 
may chase out of his heart even the memory of a 
boarding-school goddess. The Baronet was, when 1 20 
saw him, as merry and mellow an old bachelor as ever 

4. Middle Counties. The midland counties of England are a famous fox- 
hunting district. 

16. Nimrod. See Genesis 10 : 8-10. 



lO TALES OF A TRAVELER 

followed a hound ; and the love he had once felt for 
one woman had spread itself over the whole sex, so 
that there was not a pretty face in the whole country- 
round but came in for a share. 
5 The dinner was prolonged till a late hour ; for our 
host, having no ladies in his household to summon us 
to the drawing-room, the bottle maintained its true 
bachelor sway, unrivaled by its potent enemy, the 
teakettle. The old hall in which we dined echoed 

10 to bursts of robustious fox-hunting merriment, that 
made the ancient antlers shake on the walls. By 
degrees, however, the wine and the wassail of mine 
host began to operate upon bodies already a , little 
jaded by the chase. The choice spirits which flashed 

15 up at the beginning of the dinner, sparkled for a time, 
then gradually went out one after another, or only 
emitted now and then a faint gleam from the socket. 
Some of the briskest talkers, who had given tongue so 
bravely at the first burst, fell fast asleep ; and none 

20 kept on their way but certain of those long-winded 
prosers, who, like short-legged hounds, worry on un- 
noticed at the bottom of conversation, but are sure to 
be in at the death. Even these at length subsided into 
silence; and scarcely anything was heard but the 

25 nasal communications of two or three veteran masti- 
cators, who having been silent while awake, were in- 
demnifying the company in their sleep. 

At length the announcement of tea and coffee in 
the cedar-parlor roused all hands from this temporary 

30 torpor. Everyone awoke marvelously renovated, and 
while sipping the refreshing beverage out of the 
Baronet's old-fashioned hereditary china, began tq 



THE HUNTING-DINNER 11 

think of departing for their several homes. But here 
a sudden difficulty arose. While we had been pro- 
longing our repast, a heavy winter storm had set in, 
with snow, rain, and sleet, driven by such bitter 
blasts of wind, that they threatened to penetrate to the s 
very bone. 

" It 's all in vain," said our hospitable host, " to 
think of putting one's head out of doors in such 
weather. So, gentlemen, I hold you my guests for 
this night at least, and will have your quarters pre- lo 
pared accordingly." 

The unruly weather, which became more and more 
tempestuous, rendered the hospitable suggestion un- 
answerable. The only question was, whether such 
an unexpected accession of company to an already 15 
crowded house would not put the housekeeper to her 
trumps to accommodate them. 

"Pshaw," cried mine host; "did you ever know a 
bachelor's hall that was not elastic, and able to accom- 
modate twice as many as it could hold ? " So, out of 20 
a good-humored pique, the housekeeper was summoned 
to a consultation before us all. The old lady appeared 
in her gala suit of faded brocade, which rustled with 
flurry and agitation ; for, in spite of our host's bravado, 
she was a little perplexed. But in a bachelor's house, 25 
and with bachelor guests, these matters are readily 
managed. There is no lady of the house to stand 
upon squeamish points about lodging gentlemen in odd 
holes and corners, and exposing the shabby parts of 
the establishment. A bachelor's housekeeper is used 30 
to shifts and emergencies ; so, after much worrying to 
and fro, and divers consultations about the red-room, 



12 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

and the blue-room, and the chintz-room, and the 
damask-room, and the little room with the bow- 
window, the matter was finally arranged. 

When all this was done, we were once more sum- 

S moned to the standing rural amusement of eating. 
The time that had been consumed in dozing after 
dinner, and in the refreshment and consultation of 
the cedar-parlor, was sufficient, in the opinion of the 
rosy-faced butler, to engender a reasonable appetite 

10 for supper. A slight repast had, therefore, been 
tricked up from the residue of dinner, consisting of a 
cold sirloin of beef, hashed venison, a deviled leg of 
a turkey or so, and a few other of those light articles 
taken by country gentlemen to ensure sound sleep and 

15 heavy snoring. 

The nap after dinner had brightened up every one's 
wit ; and a great deal of excellent humor was ex- 
pended upon the perplexities of mine host and his 
housekeeper, by certain married gentlemen of the 

20 company, who considered themselves privileged in 
joking with a bachelor's establishment. From this 
the banter turned as to what quarters each would find, 
on being thus suddenly billeted in so antiquated a 
mansion. 

25 " By my soul," said an Irish captain of dragoons, 
one of the most merry and boisterous of the party, 
" by my soul, but I should not be surprised if some of 
those good-looking gentlefolks that hang along the 
walls should walk about the rooms of this stormy 

30 night ; or if I should find the ghosts of one of those 
long-waisted ladies turning into my bed in mistake 
for her grave in the churchyard." 



THE HUNTING-DINNER 13 

" Do you believe in ghosts, then ? " said a thin hatchet- 
faced, gentleman, with projecting eyes like a lobster. 

I had remarked this last personage during dinner- 
time for one of those incessant questioners, who have 
a craving, unhealthy appetite in conversation. He s 
never semed satisfied with the whole of a story ; never > 
laughed when others laughed; but always put the 
joke to the question. He never could enjoy the kernel 
of the nut, but pestered himself to get more out of 
the shell. " Do you believe in ghosts, then ? " said the 10 
inquisitive gentleman. 

" Faith, but I do," replied the jovial Irishman. "I 
was brought up in the fear and belief of them. We 
had a Benshee in our own family, honey." 

"A Benshee, and what's that?" cried the ques- 15 
tioner. 

" Why, an old lady ghost that tends upon your real 
Milesian families, and waits at their window to let 
them know when some of them are to die." 

" A mighty pleasant piece of information ! " cried 20 
an elderly gentleman with a knowing look and with a 
flexible nose, to which he could give a whimsical twist 
when he wished to be waggish. 

" By my soul, but I 'd have you to know it 's a piece 
of distinction to be waited on by a Benshee. It's a 25 
proof that one has pure blood in one's veins. But i' 
faith, now we are talking of ghosts, there never was 
a house or a night better fitted than the present for a 
ghost adventure. Pray, Sir John, have n't you such a 
thing as a haunted chamber to put a guest in ? " 30 

" Perhaps," said the Baronet, smiling, " I might ac- 
commodate you even on that point." 



14 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

" Oh, I should like it of all things, my jewel. Some 
dark oaken-room, with ugly woe-begone portraits, that 
stare dismally at one; and about which the house- 
keeper has a power of delightful stories of love and 

5 murder. And then a dim lamp, a table with a rusty 
sword across it, and a spectre all in white, to draw 

aside one's curtains at midnight" 

" In truth," said an old gentleman at one end of the 
table, "you put me in mind of an anecdote" 

10 " Oh, a ghost-story ! a ghost-story ! " was vociferated 
round the board, every one edging his chair a little 
nearer. 

The attention of the whole company was now turned 
upon the speaker. He was an old gentleman, one side 

15 of whose face was no match for the other. The eye- 
lid drooped and hung down like an unhinged window- 
shutter. Indeed, the whole side of his head was di- 
lapidated, and seemed like the v/ing of a house shut up 
and haunted. I '11 warrant that side was well stuffed 

20 with ghost-stories. 

There was a universal demand for the tale. 
" Kay," said the old gentleman, " it's a mere anecdote, 
and a very commonplace one ; but such as it is you 
shall have it. It is a story that I once heard my uncle 

25 tell as having happened to himself. He was a man 
very apt to meet with strange adventures. I have 
heard him tell of others much more singular." 

" What kind of a man was your uncle ? " said the 
questioning gentleman. 

30 cc Why, he was rather a dry, shrewd kind of body ; 
a great traveler, and fond of telling his adven- 
tures." 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 15 

" Pray, how old might he have been when that 
happened?" 

" When what happened? " cried the gentleman with 
the flexible nose, impatiently. " Egad, you have not 
given anything a chance to happen. Come, never 5 
mind our uncle's age ; let us have his adventures." 

The inquisitive gentleman being for the moment 
silenced, the old gentleman with the haunted head 
proceeded. 



The Adventures of my Uncle 



Many years since, some time before the French 10 
Revolution, my uncle passed several months at Paris. 
The English and French were on better terms in those 
days than at present, and mingled cordially in society. 
The English went abroad to spend money then, and 
the French were always ready to help them : they go 15 
abroad to save money at present, and that they can do 
without French assistance. Perhaps the traveling 
English were fewer and choicer than at present, when 
the whole nation has broke loose and inundated the 
continent. At any rate, they circulated more readily 2a 
and currently in foreign society, and my uncle, during 
his residence in Paris, made many very intimate 
acquaintances among the French noblesse. 

Some time afterwards, he was making a journey in 

19. Broke. Broken is the more common form to-day. 
23. Noblesse. Nobility. 



1 6 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

the winter-time in that part of ISTormandy called the 
Pays de Caux, when, as evening was closing in, he 
perceived the turrets of an ancient chateau rising out 
of the trees of its walled park ; each turret with its 
5 high conical roof of gray slate like a candle with an 
extinguisher on it. 

" To whom does that chateau belong, friend ? " cried 
my uncle to a meagre but fiery postilion, who, with 
tremendous jack-boots and cocked hat, was floundering 

10 on before him. 

" To Monseigneur the Marquis de " said the pos- 
tilion, touching his hat, partly out of respect to my 
uncle, and partly out of reverence to the noble name 
pronounced. 

15 My uncle recollected the Marquis for a particular 
friend in Paris, who had often expressed a wish to see 
him at his paternal chateau. My uncle was an old 
traveler, one who knew well how to turn things to ac- 
count. He revolved for a few moments in his mind, 

20 how agreeable it would be to his friend the Marquis to 
be surprised in this sociable way by a pop visit ; and 
how much more agreeable to himself to get into snug 
quarters in a chateau, and have a relish of the Mar- 
quis' well-known kitchen, and a smack of his superior 

25 Champagne and Burgundy, rather than put up with 
the miserable lodgment and miserable fare of a pro- 
vincial inn. In a few minutes, therefore, the meagre 
postilion was cracking his whip like a very devil, or 
like a true Frenchman, up the long, straight avenue 

30 that led to the chateau. 

You have no doubt all seen French chateaus, as 
everybody travels in France nowadays. This was one 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 17 

of the oldest ; standing naked and alone in the midst 
of a desert of gravel walks and cold stone terraces ; 
with a cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and 
rhomboids ; and a cold, leafless park, divided geomet- 
rically by straight alleys ; and two or three cold-look- 5 
ing, noseless statues; and fountains spouting cold 
water enough to make one's teeth chatter. At least 
such was the feeling they imparted on the wintry day 
of my uncle's visit ; though, in hot summer weather, 
I'll warrant there was glare enough to scorch one's 10 
eyes out. 

The smacking of the postilion's whip, which grew 
more and more intense the nearer they approached, 
frightened a flight of pigeons out of a dove-cot, and 
rooks out of the roofs, and finally a crew of servants 15 
out of the chateau, with the Marquis at their head. 
He was enchanted to see my uncle, for his chateau, 
like the house of our worthy host, had not many more 
guests at the time than it could accommodate. So he 
kissed my uncle on each cheek, after the French fash- 20 
ion, and ushered him into the castle. 

The Marquis did the honors of the house with the ur- 
banity of his country. In fact, he was proud of his old 
family chateau, for part of it was extremely old. There 
was a tower and chapel which had been built almost be- 25 
fore the memory of man ; but the rest was more modern, 
the castle having been nearly demolished during the 
wars of the league. The Marquis dwelt upon this 
event with great satisfaction, and seemed really to en- 

28. Wars of the Leag^ue. A Catholic league was formed at Peronne in 
1576 to prevent the accession of Henry IV., the leader of the Huguenot 
party, to the throne of France. It resulted in civil war in which Henry IV. 
was finally victorious. 



l8 TALES OF A TEA VELER 

tertain a grateful feeling towards Henry the Fourth, 
for having thought his paternal mansion worth bat- 
tering down. He had many stories to tell of the 
prowess of his ancestors ; and several sl<:ull-caps, hel- 
5 mets, and cross-bows, and divers huge boots and buff 
jerkins, to show, which had been worn by the leaguers. 
Above all, there was a two-handed sword, which he 
could hardly wield, but which he displayed, as a proof 
that there had been giants in his family. 

10 In truth, he was but a small descendant from such 
great warriors. When you looked at their bluff visages 
and brawny limbs, as depicted in their portraits, and 
then at the little Marquis, with his spindle shanks, and 
his sallow lantern visage, flanked with a pair of pow- 

isdered ear-locks, or ailes de pigeon that seemed ready 
to fly away with it, you could hardly believe him to be 
of the same race. But when you looked at the eyes 
that sparkled out like a beetle's from each side of his 
hooked nose, you saw at once that he inherited all the 

20 fiery spirit of his forefathers. In fact, a Frenchman's 
spirit never exhales, however his body may dwindle. 
It rather rarefies, and grows more inflammable, as the 
earthly particles diminish; and I have seen valor 
enough in a little fiery-hearted French dwarf to have 

25 furnished out a tolerable giant. 

When once the Marquis, as was his wont, put on 
one of the old helmets stuck up in his hall, though his 
head no more filled it than a dry pea its peascod, yet 
his eyes flashed from the bottom of the iron cavern 

30 with the brilliancy of carbuncles; and when he poised 
the ponderous two-handed sword of his ancestors, you 

15. Ailes de Pigeon. Pigeon wings. 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 19 

would have thought you saw the doughty little David 
wielding the sword of Goliath, which was unto him 
like a weaver's beam. 

However, gentlemen, I am dwelling too long on this 
description of the Marquis and his chateau, but you 5 
must excuse me ; he was an old friend of my uncle ; 
and whenever my uncle told the story, he was always 
fond of talking a great deal about his host. — Poor little 
Marquis ! He was one of that handful of gallant cour- 
tiers who made such a devoted but hopeless stand in 10 
the cause of their sovereign, in the chateau of the 
Tuileries, against the irruption of the mob on the sad 
tenth of August. He displayed the valor of a preux 
French chevalier to the last; flourishing feebly his 
little court-sword with a pa-pa/ in face of a whole 15 
legion of sans-culottes ; but was pinned to the wall like 
a butterfly, by the pike of '^ poissarde^ and his heroic 
soul was borne up to heaven on his ailes de pigeon. 

But all this has nothing to do- with my story. To 
the point, then. When the hour arrived for retiring 20 
for the night, my uncle was shown to his room in a 
venerable old tower. It was the oldest part of the 

13. Sad Tenth of August. On the 10th of August, 1792, an armed mob 
broke into the royal palace of the Taileries in Paris and put to death every 
person found within it. A determined stand was made against the attack 
by the Swiss Guard and a few courtiers. ''The fugitives, pursued into the 
gardens of the Tuileries, were murdered under the trees, amidst the 
fountains, and at the feet of the statues. Some wretches climbed up the 
marble monuments which adorn that splendid spot. The insurgents re- 
frained from firing, lest they should injure the statuary, but pricked them 
with their bayonets till they came down and then slaughtered them at their 
feet ; an instance of taste for art mingled with revolutionary cruelty, un- 
paralleled in the history of the world." — Alison'' s History of Europe. 

13. Preuxo Gallant. 

1 5. Ca=Ca I The exclamation of a swordsman as he thrusts. '' So, so ! " 

16. Sans=Culottes. The revolutionary populace were so called by the 
royal party. The word means " without breeches.'" 

17. Posssarde. Fish women. Men, women, and children participated in 
the frenzied riots of the Revolution, 



20 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

chateau, and had in ancient times been the donjon or 
stronghold; of course the chamber was none of the 
best. The Marquis had put him there, however, be- 
cause he knew him to be a traveler of taste, and fond 

5 of antiquities ; and also because the better apartments 
were already occupied. Indeed, he perfectly reconciled 
my uncle to his quarters by mentioning the great per- 
sonages who had once inhabited them, all of whom 
were, in some way or other, connected with the family. 

10 If you would take his word for it, John Baliol, or as 
he called him, Jean de Bailleul, had died of chagrin in 
this very chamber, on hearing of the success of his 
rival, Robert the Bruce, at the Battle of Bannockburn. 
And when he added that the Duke de Guise had slept 

1 5 in it, my uncle was fain to felicitate himself on being 
honored with such distinguished quarters. 

The night was shrewd and windy, and the chamber 
none of the warmest. An old long-faced, long-bodied 
servant, in quaint livery, who attended upon my uncle^ 

20 threw down an armful of wood beside the fireplace, 
gave a queer look about the room, and then wished him 
hon repos with a grimace and a shrug that would have 
been suspicious from any other than an old French 
servant. 

25 The chamber had indeed a wild, crazy look, enough 
to strike any one who had read romances with appre- 

10. John Baliol. (1249-1315). A deposed King of Scotland. He took refuge 
in France and died in obscurity, leaving the crown in English hands. 

13. Robert the Bruce. (1274-1329). Robert Bruce was successful in what 
John Baliol had failed in, and at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314) com- 
pletely defeated the English and established the independence of Scotland. 

14. Duke de Guise. One of the two of thatiiarne, leaders of the Catholic 
party in the Wars of the League. 

23. Bon Repos. Good-night, 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 21 

hension and foreboding. The windows were high and 
narrow, and had once been loop-holes, but had been 
rudely enlarged, as well as the extreme thickness of 
the walls would permit ; and the ill-fitted casements 
rattled to every breeze. You would have thought, on s 
a windy night, some of the old leaguers were tramping 
and clanking about the apartment in their huge boots 
and rattling spurs. A door which stood ajar, and, like 
a true French door, would stand ajar in spite of every 
reason and effort to the contrary, opened upon a long lo 
dark corridor, that led the Lord knows whither, and 
seemed just made for ghosts to air themselves in, 
when they turned out of their graves at midnight. 
The wind would spring up into a hoarse murmur through 
this passage and creak the door to and fro, as if some 15 
dubious ghost were balancing in its mind whether to 
come in or not. In a word, it was precisely the kind of 
comfortless apartment that a ghost, if ghost there 
were in the chateau, would single out for its favorite 
lounge. 20 

My uncle, however, though a man accustomed to 
meet with strange adventures, apprehended none at 
the time. He made several attempts to shut the door,, 
but in vain. ISTot that he apprehended anything, for he 
was too old a traveller to be daunted by a wild-looking 25; 
apartment ; but the night, as I have said, was cold and 
gusty, and the wind howled about the old turret pretty 
much as it does round this old mansion at this moment, 
and the breeze from the long dark corridor came in as 
damp and as chilly as if from a dungeon. My uncle, 30^ 
therefore, since he could not close the door, threw 
a quantity of wood on the fire, which soon sent up a 



22 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

flame in the great wide-mouthed chimney that illumined 
the whole chamber ; and made the shadow of the tongs 
on the opposite wall look like a long-legged giant. My 
uncle now clambered on the top of the half-score of 
5 mattresses which form a French bed, and which stood 
in a deep recess ; then tucking himself snugly in, and 
burying himself up to the chin in the bedclothes, he 
lay looking at the fire, and listening to the wind, and 
thinking how knowingly he had come over his friend 

lothe Marquis for a night's lodging — and so he fell 
asleep. 

He had not taken above half of his first nap when he 
was awakened by the clock of the chateau, in the 
turret over his chamber, which struck midnight. It 

15 was just such an old clock as ghosts are fond of. It had 
a deep, dismal tone, and struck so slowly and tedi- 
ously that my uncle thought it would never have done. 
He counted and counted till he was confident he 
counted thirteen, and then it stopped. 

20 The fire had burned low, and the blaze of the last 
fagot was almost expiring, burning in small blue 
fiames, which now and then lengthened up into little 
white gleams. My uncle lay with his eyes half closed, 
and his nightcap drawn almost down to his nose. His 

25 fancy was already wandering, and began to mingle up 
the present scene with the crater of Vesuvius, the 
French Opera, the Coliseum at Rome, Dolly's chop- 
house in London, and all the farrago of noted places 

27. Coliseum. The ruins of the Flavian Amphitheatre at Rome, which 
would seat nearly 90,000 spectators, and covered about six acres of ground. 
Its extensive remains, still existing, were long a quarry for the erection of 
modern edifices. 

27. Dolly's Chop=House. A famous old London eating-place in Queen's 
Head Passage, Paternoster Row and Newgate Street, now torn down. 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 23 

with which the brain of a traveler is crammed, — in a 
word, he was just falling asleep. 

Suddenly he was roused by the sound of footsteps, 
slowly pacing along the corridor. My uncle, as I have 
often heard him say himself, was a man not easily 5 
frightened. So he lay quiet, supposing this some other 
guest, or some servant on his way to bed. The foot- 
steps, however, approached the door ; the door gently 
opened ; whether of its own accord, or whether pushed 
open, my uncle could not distinguish : a figure all in 10 
white glided in. It was a female, tall and stately, and 
of a commanding air. Her dress was of an ancient 
fashion, ample in volume, and sweeping the floor. She 
walked up to the fireplace, without regarding my uncle, 
who raised his nightcap with one hand, and stared 15 
earnestly at her. She remained for some time stand- 
ing by the fire, which, flashing up at intervals, cast blue 
and white gleams of light, that enabled my uncle to 
remark her appearance minutely. 

Her face was ghastly pale, and perhaps rendered still 20 
more so by the bluish light of the fire. It possessed 
beauty, but its beauty was saddened by care and anxi- 
ety. There was the look of one accustomed to trouble, 
but of one whom trouble could not cast down nor sub- 
due ; for there was still the predominating air of proud, 25 
unconquerable resolution. Such at least was the opin- 
ion formed by my uncle, and he considered himself a 
great physiognomist. 

The figure remained, as I said, for some time by the fire, 
putting out first one hand, then the other ; then each 30 
foot alternately, as if warming itself ; for your ghosts, if 
ghost it really was, are apt to be cold. My uncle, fur- 



24. TALES OF A TRA VELER 

thermore, remarked that it wore high-heeled shoes, 
after an ancient fashion, with paste or diamond buckles, 
that sparkled as though they were alive. At length the 
figure turned gently round, casting a glassy look about 
5 the apartment, which, as it passed over my uncle, made 
his blood run cold, and chilled the very marrow in his 
bones. It then stretched its arms towards heaven, 
clasped its hands, and wringing them in a supplicating 
manner, glided slowly out of the room. 

10 My uncle lay for some time meditating on this visita- 
tion, for (as he remarked when he told me the story) 
though a man of firmness, he was also a man of reflec- 
tion, and did not reject a thing because it was out of the 
regular course of events. However, being, as I have 

15 before said, a great traveler, and accustomed to strange 
adventures, he drew his nightcap resolutely over his 
eyes, turned his back to the door, hoisted the bed- 
clothes high over his shoulders, and gradually fell 
asleep. 

20 How long he slept he could not say, when he was 
awakened by the voice of some one at his bedside. He 
turned round, and beheld the old French servant, 
with his ear-locks in tight buckles on each side of a 
long lantern face, on which habit had deeply wrinkled 

25 an everlasting smile. He made a thousand grimaces, 
and asked a thousand pardons for disturbing Mon- 
sieur, but the morning was considerably advanced. 
While my uncle was dressing, he called vaguely to 
mind the visitor of the preceding night. He asked 

30 the ancient domestic what lady was in the habit of 
rambling about this part of the chateau at night. The 
old valet shrugged his shoulders as high as his head, 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 



25 



laid one hand on his bosom, threw open the other 
with every finger extended, made a most whimsical 
grimace which he meant to be complimentary, and 
replied, that he knew nothing of the matter. 

My uncle saw there was nothing satisfactory to be 5 
learned in this quarter. After breakfast, he was walk- 
ing with the Marquis through the modern apart- 
ments of the chateau, sliding over the well-waxed 
floors of silken saloons, amidst furniture rich in gild- 
ing and brocade, until they came to a long picture-gal- lo 
lery, containing many portraits, some in oil and some 
in chalks. 

Here was an ample field for the eloquence of his 
host, who had all the pride of a nobleman of the 
ancien regime. There was not a grand name in IsTor- 15 
mandy, and hardly one in France, which was not, in 
some way or other, connected with his house. My 
uncle stood listening with inward impatience, resting 
sometimes on one leg, sometimes on the other, as the 
little Marquis descanted, with his usual fire and 20 
vivacity, on the achievements of his ancestors, whose 
portraits hung along the wall ; frcm the martial 
deeds of the stern warriors in steel, to the gallantries 
and intrigues of the blue-eyed gentlemen, with fair, 
smiling faces, powdered ear-locks, laced ruffles, and 25 
pink and blue silk coats and breeches ; — not forgetting 
the conquests of the lovely shepherdesses, with hooped 
petticoats, and waists no thicker than an hour-glass, 
who appeared ruling over their sheep and their 



15. Ancien regime. A French phrase used to denote the historical 
period preceding the French Revolution. 



26 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

swains, with dainty crooks decorated with fluttering 
ribbons. 

In the midst of his friend's discourse, my uncle was 
startled on beholding a full-length portrait, the' very 
5 counterpart of his visitor of the preceding night. 

" Methinks," said he, pointing to it, " I have seen 
the original of this portrait." 

"Pardonnez moi," replied the Marquis politely, 

"that can hardly be, as the lady has been dead more 

lothan a hundred years. That was the beautiful 

Duchess de Longueville, who figured during the 

minority of Louis the Fourteenth." 

"And was there anything remarkable in her his- 
tory ? " 
15 Never was question more unlucky. The little Mar- 
quis immediately threw himself into the attitude of a 
man about to tell a long story. In fact, my uncle had 
pulled upon himself the whole history of the civil war 
of the Fronde, in which the beautiful Duchess had 
20 played so distinguished a part. Turenne, Coligni, 
Mazarin, were called up from their graves to grace his 

8. Pardonnez=moi. Pardon me. 

19. Fronde. This civil war (1648-1653) was an uprising of the people 
agaist the excessive taxation imposed by Mazarin during the minority of 
Louis XIV. '' The word fronde means a sling. The boys of Paris were 
accustomed to gather outside the walls of the city, and divide into two 
parties, which attacked each other with slings. On the approach of the 
guard they ran away, but only to return when they were gone. Some one, 
noticing that the intermittent action of the slingers resembled that of th«, 
parliament toward the court, applied the name to the former in jest. The 
term was adopted by the people at once, a frondeur meaning one who 
opposed the court ; a Mazarin, one who upheld it." — Anderson's History of 
France. 

20. Turenne. (1611-1675). One of the greatest generals of Louis XIV. 

20. Admiral Coligni. (1527-1572). The leader of the Huguenot party. 
He was assassinated at the wholesale massacre of Huguenots on St. Bar- 
tholomew's Day, 1572. 

21. Cardinal Mazarin. (1602-1661). The Prime Minister of France during 
the minority of Louis XIV. 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 27 

narration ; nor were the affairs of the Barricadoes, 
nor the chivalry of the Fortes Cocheres forgotten. 
My uncle began to wish himself a thousand leagues 
off from the Marquis and his merciless memory, when 
suddenly the little man's recollection took a more 5 
interesting turn. He was relating the imprisonment of 
the Duke de Longueville with the Princes Conde and 
Conti ill the chateau of Vincennes, and the ineffectual 
efforts of the Duchess to rouse the sturdy Normans 
to their rescue. He had come to that part where she 10 
was invested by the royal forces in the Castle of 
Dieppe. 

" The spirit of the Duchess," proceeded the Mar- 
quis, " rose from her trials. It was astonishing to see 
so delicate and beautiful a being buffet so resolutely 15 
with hardships. She determined on a desperate 
means of escape. You may have seen the chateau in 
which she was mewed up, — an old ragged wart of an 
edifice, standing on the knuckle of a hill, just above 
the rusty little town of Dieppe. One dark unruly 20 
night she issued secretly out of a small postern gate of 
the castle, which the enemy had neglected to guard. 
The postern gate is there to this very day ; opening 
upon a narrow bridge over a deep fosse between the 
castle and the brow of the hill. She was followed by 25 
her female attendants, a few domestics, and some gal- 
lant cavaliers, who still remained faithful to her fort- 



1. Barricadoes. The "Day of the Barricades," August 26, 1648, owed 
its name to a riot caused by the arrest of a popular leader. 

2. Chivalry of the Portes Cocheres. In order to obtain troops, the 
parliamentary party called on each household to furnish one mounted man. 
Porte cochere means the entrance to the house for carriages. 

6. Imprisonment. These three nobles were imprisoned for having 
taken the side of the /ronc^eurs. 



28 Tales Of A TkA veler 

unes. Her bbject was to gain a small port about two 
leagues distant, where she had privately provided a 
vessel for her escape in case of emergency. 

" The little band of fugitives were obliged to per- 
5 form the distance on foot. When they arrived at the 
port the wind was high and stormy, the tide contrary, 
the vessel anchored far off in the road, and no means 
of getting on board but by a fishing-shallop which 
lay tossing like a cockle-shell on the edge of the surf. 
10 The Duchess determined to risk the attempt. The 
seamen endeavored to dissuade her, but the immi- 
nence of her danger on shore, and the magnanimity 
of her spirit, urged her on. She had to be borne to 
the shallop in the arms of a mariner. Such was the 
15 violence of the wind and waves that he faltered, lost 
his foothold, and let his precious burden fall into the 
sea. 

"The Duchess was nearly drowned, but partly 
through her own struggles, partly by the exertions of 
20 the seamen, she got to land. As soon as she had a lit- 
tle recovered strength, she insisted on renewing the 
attempt. The storm, however, had by this time be- 
come so violent as to set all efforts at defiance. To 
delay, was to be discovered and taken prisoner. As 
25 the only resource left, she procured horses, mounted 
with her female attendants, en croupe^ behind the gal- 
lant gentlemen who accompanied her, and scoured the 
country to seek some temporary asylum. 

"While the Duchess," continued the Marquis, lay- 
so ing his forefinger on my uncle's breast to arouse his 

26. En Croupe. Riding back of the saddle. 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 



29 



flagging attention, — " while the Duchess, poor lady, 
was wandering amid the tempest in this disconsolate 
manner, she arrived at this chateau. Her approach 
caused some uneasiness ; for the clattering of a troop 
of horse at dead of night up the avenue of a lonely 5 
chateau, in those unsettled times, and in a troubled 
part of the country, was enough to occasion alarm. 

"A tall, broad-shouldered chasseur, armed to the 
teeth, galloped ahead, and announced the name of the 
visitor. All uneasiness was dispelled. The household ^^ 
turned out with flambeaux to receive her, and never 
did torches gleam on a more weather-beaten, travel- 
stained band than came tramping into the court. Such 
pale, careworn faces, such bedraggled dresses, as the 
poor Duchess and her females presented, each seated 15 
behind her cavalier : while the half-drenched, half- 
drowsy pages and attendants seemed ready to fall 
from their horses with sleep and fatigue. 

" The Duchess was received with a hearty welcome 
by my ancestor. She was ushered into the hall of the ^o 
chateau, and the fires soon crackled and blazed, to 
cheer herself and her train ; and every spit and stew- 
pan was put in requisition to prepare ample refresh- 
ment for the wayfarers. 

" She had a right to our hospitalities," continued 25 
the Marquis, drawing himself up with a slight degree 
of stateliness, " for she was related to our family. I'll 
tell you how it was. Her father, Henry de Bourbon, 
Prince of Conde" 

"But did the Duchess pass the night in the cha-30 

8. Chasseur. Originally the word meant a huntsman, here used for a 
servant. 



30 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

teau ? " said my uncle rather abruptly, terrified at the 
idea of getting involved in one of the Marquis' genea- 
logical discussions. 

" Oh, as to the Duchess, she was put into the very 
5 apartment you occupied last night, which at that time 
was a kind of state-apartment. Her followers were 
quartered in the chambers opening upon the neighbor- 
ing corridor, and her favorite page slept in an adjoin- 
ing closet. Up and down the corridor walked the 

10 great chasseur who had announced her arrival, and 
who acted as a kind of sentinel or guard. He was a 
dark, stern, powerful-looking fellow ; and as the light 
of a lamp in the corridor fell upon his deeply-marked 
face and sinewy form, he seemed capable of defending 

15 the castle with his single arm. 

"It was a rough, rude night; about this time of the 
year — apropos ! — now I think of it, last night was the 
anniversary of her visit. I may well remember the 
precise date, for it was a night not to be forgotten by 

20 our house. There is a singular tradition concerning it 
in our family." Here the Marquis hesitated, and a 
cloud seemed to gather about his bushy eyebrows. 
" There is a tradition — that a strange occurrence took 
place that night — a strange, mysterious, inexplicable 

25 occurrence." Here he checked himself, and 

paused. 

"Did it relate to that lady?" inquired my uncle, 
eagerly. 

" It was past the hour of midnight," resumed the 

30 Marquis, " when the whole chateau " Here he 

paused again. My uncle made a movement of anxious 
curiosity. 



THE ADVENTURES OF MY UNCLE 31 

"Excuse me," said the Marquis, a slight blush 
streaking his sallow visage. " There are some circum- 
stances connected with our family history which I do 
not like to relate. That was a rude period. A time 
of great crimes among great men : for you know high 5 
blood, when it runs wrong, will not run tamely, like 
blood of the canaille — poor lady ! — but I have a little 
family pride, that — excuse me — we will change the 
subject, if you please " 

My uncle's curiosity was piqued. The pompous and 10 
magnificent introduction had led him to expect some- 
thing wonderful in the story to which it served as a 
kind of avenue. He had no idea of being cheated out 
of it by a sudden fit of unreasonable squeamishness. 
Besides, being a traveler in quest of information, he 15 
considered it his duty to inquire into everything. 

The Marquis, however, evaded every question. 

"Well," said my uncle, a little petulantly, "what- 
ever you may think of it, I saw that lady last night." 

The Marquis stepped back and gazed at him with 20 
surprise. 

" She paid me a visit in my bedchamber." 

The Marquis pulled out his snuff-box with a shrug 
and a smile ; taking this no doubt for an awkward 
piece of English pleasantry, which politeness required 25 
him to be charmed with. 

My uncle went on gravely, however, and related the 
whole circumstance. The Marquis heard him through 
with profound attention, holding his snuff-box un- 
opened in his hand. When the story was finished, he 30 

7. Canaille. The lower classes, the rabble. 



32 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

tapped on the lid of his box deliberately, took a long, 

sonorous pinch of snuff. 

" Bah ! " said the Marquis, and walked towards the 
other end of the gallery. 

5 Here the narrator paused. The company waited for 
some time for him to resume his narration ; but he 
continued silent. 

"Well," said the inquisitive gentleman, "and 

what did your uncle say then ? " 
10 " Nothing," replied the other. 

"And what did the Marquis say farther ? " 
" Nothing." 
"And is that all?" 

"That is all," said the narrator, filling a glass of 
15 wine. 

"I surmise," said the shrewd old gentleman with 

the waggish nose, "I surmise the ghost must have 

been the old housekeeper, walking her rounds to see 
that all was right." 
20 " Bah ! " said the narrator. " My uncle was too 
much accustomed to strange sights not to know a 
ghost from a housekeeper." 

There was a murmur round the table, half of merri- 
ment, half of disappointment. I was inclined to think 
25 the old gentleman had really an af terpart of his story 
in reserve ; but he sipped his wine and said nothing 
more ; and there was an odd expression about his 
dilapidated countenance which left me in doubt 
whether he were in drollery or earnest. 
30 "Egad," said the knowing gentleman, with the 
flexible nose, " this story of your uncle puts me in 



THE AD VENTURE OF MY A UNT 2>Z 

mind of one that used to be told of an aunt of mine, 
by the mother's side ; though I don't know that it 
will bear a comparison, as the good lady was not so 
prone to meet with strange adventures. But any rate 
vou shall have it" 5 



The Adventure of my Aunt 

My aunt was a lady of large frame, strong mind, and 
great resolution : she was what might be termed a 
very manly woman. My uncle was a thin, puny little 
man, very meek and acquiescent, and no match for my 
aunt. It was observed that he dwindled and dwindled lo 
gradually away, from the day of his marriage. His 
wife's powerful mind was too much for him ; it wore 
him out. My aunt, however, took all possible care of 
him ; had half the doctors in town to prescribe for him ; 
made him take all their prescriptions, and dosed him 15 
with pTiysic enough to cure a whole hospital. All was 
in vain. My uncle grew worse and worse the more 
dosing and nursing he underwent, until in the end he 
added another to the long list of matrimonial victims 
who have been killed with kindness. 20 

" And was it his ghost that appeared to her ? " asked 
the inquisitive gentleman, who had questioned the for- 
mer story-teller. 

"You shall hear," replied the narrator. — My aunt 
took on mightily for the death of her poor dear hus- 25 
band. Perhaps she felt some compunction at having 
given him so much physic, and nursed him into the 
3 



34 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

grave. At any rate, she did all that a widow could 
do to honor his memory. She spared no expense in 
either the quantity or quality of her mourning weeds ; 
wore a miniature of him about her neck as large as a 
5 little sun-dial, and had a full-length portrait of him 
always hanging in her bed-chamber. All the world 
extolled her conduct to the skies ; and it was deter- 
mined that a woman who behaved so well to the mem- 
ory of one husband deserved soon to get another. 

lo It was not long after this that she went to take up 
her residence in an old country-seat in Derbyshire, 
which had long been in the care of merely a steward 
and housekeeper. She took most of her servants with 
her, intending to make it her principal abode. The 

15 house stood in a lonely wild part of the country, among 
the gray Derbyshire hills, with a murderer hanging in 
chains on a bleak height in full view. 

The servants from town were half frightened out of 
their wits at the idea of living in such a dismal, pagan- 

20 looking place ; especially when they got together in the 
servants' hall in the evening, and compared notes on 
all the hobgoblin stories picked up in the course of the 
day. They were afraid to venture alone about the 
gloomy, black-looking chambers. My lady's maid, 

25 who was troubled with nerves, declared she could 

never sleep alone in such a " gashly rummaging old 

building " ; and the footman, who was a kind-hearted 

young fellow, did all in his power to cheer her up. 

My aunt was struck with the lonely appearance of 

30 the house. Before going to bed, therefore, she exam- 
ined well the fastnesses of the doors and windows ; 
locked up the plate with her own hands, and carried 



THE ADVENTURE OF MY AUNT 35 

the keys, together with a little box of money and jew- 
els, to her own room ; for she was a notable woman, 
and always saw to all things herself. Having put the 
keys under her pillow, and dismissed her maid, she sat 
by her toilet arranging her hair ; for being, in spite of 5 
her grief for my uncle, rather a buxom widow, she was 
somewhat particular about her person. She sat for a 
little while looking at her face in the glass, first on one 
side, then on the other, as ladies are apt to do when 
they would ascertain whether they have been in good to 
looks ; for a roistering country squire of the neighbor- 
hood, with whom she had flirted when a girl, had 
called that day to welcome her to the country. 

All of a sudden she thought she heard something 
move behind her. She looked hastily round, but there 15 
was nothing to be seen. Nothing but the grimly 
painted portrait of her poor dear man, hanging against 
the wall. 

She gave a heavy sigh to his memory, as she was ac- 
customed to do whenever she spoke of him in company, 20 
and then went on adjusting her night-dress, and think- 
ing of the squire. Her sigh was re-echoed, or answered 
by a long-drawn breath. She looked round again, but 
no one was to be seen. She ascribed these sounds to 
the wind oozing through the rat-holes of the old man- 25 
sion, and proceeded leisurely to put her hair in papers, 
when, all at once, she thought she perceived one of the 
eyes of the portrait move. 

" The back of her head being towards it ! " said the 
story-teller with the ruined head, — " good ! " 30 

"Yes, sir!" replied dryly the narrator, "her back 
being towards the portrait, but her eyes fixed on it§ 



36 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

reflection in the glass." — Well, as I was saying, she 
perceived one of the eyes of the portrait move. So 
strange a circumstance, as you may well suppose, gave 
her a sudden shock. To assure herself of the fact, she 
5 put one hand to her forehead as if rubbing it; peeped 
through her fingers, and moved the candle with the 
other hand. The light of the taper gleamed on the 
eye, and was reflected from it. She was sure it moved. 
Nay, more, it seemed to give her a wink, as she had 

10 sometimes known her husband to do when living I It 
struck a momentary chill to her heart ; for she was a 
lone woman, and felt herself fearfully situated. 

The chill was but transient. My aunt, who was 
almost as resolute a personage as your uncle, sir (turn- 

i5ing to the old story-teller), became instantly calm and 
collected. She went on adjusting her dress. She even 
hummed an air, and did not make even a single false 
note. She casually overturned a dressing-box; took 
a candle and picked up the articles one by one from 

20 the floor ; pursued a rolling pin-cushion that was mak- 
ing the best of its way under the bed ; then opened the 
door ; looked for an instant into the corridor, as if in 
doubt whether to go ; and then walked quietly out. 
She hastened downstairs, ordered the servants to arm 

25 themselves with the weapons first at hand, placed her- 
self at their head, and returned almost immediately. 

Her hastily levied army presented a formidable 
force. The steward had a rusty blunderbuss, the 
coachman a loaded whip, the footman a pair of horse- 

30 pistols, the cook a huge chopping-knife, and the butler 
a bottle in each hand. My aunt led the van with a 
red-hot poker, and in my opinion she was the most for- 



THE ADVENTURE OF MY AUNT 37 

midable of the party. The waiting-maid, who dreaded 
to stay alone in the servants' hall, brought up the rear, 
smelling to a broken bottle of volatile salts, and ex- 
pressing her terror of the ghostesses. '' Ghosts ! " said 
my aunt, resolutely. " I '11 singe their whiskers for 5 
them ! " 

They entered the chamber. All was still and un- 
disturbed as when she had left it. They approached 
the portrait of my uncle. 

" Pull down that picture ! ' cried my aunt. A heavy 10 
groan, and a sound like the chattering of teeth, issued 
from the portrait. The servants shrunk back; the 
maid uttered a faint shriek, and clung to the footman 
for support. 

"Instantly!" added my aunt, with a stamp of the 15 
foot. 

The picture was pulled down, and from a recess be- 
hind it, in which had formerly stood a clock, they 
hauled forth a round-shouldered, black-bearded varlet, 
with a knife as long as my arm, but trembling all over 20 
like an aspen-leaf. 

" Well, and who was he ? No ghost, I suppose," said 
the inquisitive gentleman. 

" A Knight of the Post," replied the narrator, " who 
had been smitten with the worth of the wealthy widow ; 25 
or rather a marauding Tarquin, who had stolen into 
her chamber to violate her purse, and rifle her strong 
box, when all the house should be asleep. In plain 



24. Knight of the Post. A criminal who made his living by giving false 
evidence at trials— hence a sharper of any kind ; so called either from 
being found waiting at the posts which the sheriffs set up outside their 
doors for posting proclamations on, or else from a probable intimate 
acquaintance with the whipping-post and pillory. 



;^S TALES OF A TRA VELER 

terms," continued he, " the vagabond was a loose idle 
fellow of the neighborhood, who had once been a serv- 
ant in the house, and liad been employed to assist in 
arranging it for the reception of its mistress.. He con- 
Sfessed that he had contrived this hiding-place for his 
nefarious purposes, and had borrowed an eye from the 
portrait by way of a reconnoitering-hole." 

" And what did they do with him ? — did they hang 
him ? " resumed tlie questioner. 

10 " Hang him ! — how could they ? " exclaimed a beetle- 
browed barrister, with a hawk's nose. *^' The offense 
was not capital. N^o robbery, no assault had been 
committed. ISTo forcible entry or breaking into the 
premises " 

15 "My aunt," said the narrator, "was a woman of 
spirit, and apt to take the law in her own hands. She 
had her own notions of cleanliness also. She ordered 
the fellow to be drawn through the horse-pond, to 
cleanse away all offenses, and then to be well rubbed 

20 down with an oaken towel." 

" And what became of him afterwards ? " said the 
inquisitive gentleman. 

" 1 do not exactly know. I believe he was sent on a 
voyage of improvement to Botany Bay." 

25 "And your aunt," said the inquisitive gentleman; 
'^I '11 warrant she took care to make her maid sleep in 
the room with her after that." 

"No, sir, she did better; she gave her hand shortly 
after to the roistering squire ; for she used to observe, 



24. Botany Bay. A place on the east coast of Australia u§ed ^s ap Eng-. 
Ijsh convict settlement. 



THE INN AT TERRACINA 



39 



that it was a dismal thing for a woman to sleep alone 
in the country." 

" She was right," observed the inquisitive gentleman, 
nodding sagaciously ; " but I am sorry they did not 
hang that fellow." 5 

It was agreed on all hands that the last narrator 
had brought his tale to the most satisfactory conclu- 
sion, though a country clergyman present regretted 
that the uncle and aunt, who figured in the different 
stories, had not been married together ; they certainly lo 
would have been well matched. 



The Inn at Terracina 



Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack! 

" Here comes the estafette from Naples," said mine 
host of the inn at Terracina ; " bring out the relay." 

The estafette came galloping up the road according 15 
to custom, brandishing over his head a short-handled 
whip, with a long, knotted lash, every smack of 
which made a report like a pistol. He was a tight, 
square-set young fellow, in the usual uniform : a 
smart blue coat, ornamented with facings and gold 20 
lace, but so short behind as to reach scarcely below 
his waistband, and cocked up not unlike the tail of a 

14. Terracina. Pronounced ter-ra-che-na. An Italian seaport town at 
the end of the Pontine marshes, the marshy tract between Rome and 
Naples. 

15. Estafette. A French name for a courier. 



40 TALES OF A TEA VELER 

wren; a cocked hat edged with gold lace; a pair of 
stiff riding-boots; but, instead of the usual leathern 
breeches, he had a fragment of a pair of drawers, that 
scarcely furnished an apology for modesty to hide be- 
5 hind. 

The estafette galloped up to the door, and jumped 
from his horse. 

"A glass of rosolio, a fresh horse, and a pair of 
breeches," said he, " and quickly, per Tamor cU Dio^ I 
10 am behind my time, and must be off! " 

" San Gennaro ! " replied the host ; " why, where 
hast thou left thy garment ?" 

" Among the robbers between this and Fondi." 

" What, rob an estafette ! I never heard of such 
IS folly. What could they hope to get from thee? " 

*' My leather breeches ! " replied the estafette. " They 
were bran new, and shone like gold, and hit the fancy 
of the captain." 

"Well, these fellows grow worse and worse. To 
20 meddle with an estafette ! and that merely for the sake 
of a pair of leather breeches ! " 

The robbing of the government messenger seemed 
to strike the host with more astonishment than any 
other enormity that had taken place on the road ; and, 
25 indeed, it was the first time so wanton an outrage had 
been committed ; the robbers generally taking care not 
to meddle with anything belonging to the government. 

The estafette was by this time equipped, for he had 



8. Rosolio. A liqueur or cordial. 

9. Per Tamor di Dio. For the love of God. In foreign languages such 
expressions never have the same weight as in English. 

11. San Gennaro. A light Italian oath/' By Saint Januarius." 



THE INN A T TERRACINA 41 

not lost an instant in making his preparations while 
talking. The relay was ready; the rosolio tossed off; 
he grasped the reins and the stirrup. 

"Were there many robbers in the band?" said a 
handsome, dark young man, stepping forward from the 5 
door of the inn. 

"As formidable a band as ever I saw," said the esta- 
f ette, springing into the saddle. 

" Are they cruel to travelers ? " said a beautiful young 
Venetian lady, who had been hanging on the gentle- 10 
man's arm. 

" Cruel, signora ! " echoed the estafette, giving a 
glance at the lady as he put spurs to his horse. " Corpo 
di Bacco ! They stiletto all the men ; and, as to the 

women" Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack! — 15 

The last words were drowned in the smacking of the 
whip, and away galloped the estafette along the road 
to the Pontine marshes. 

" Holy Virgin ! " ejaculated the fair Venetian, " what 
will become of us ! " 20 

The inn of which we are speaking stands just out- 
side of the walls of Terracina, under a vast precipitous 
height of rocks, crowned with the ruins of the castle 
of Theodric the Goth. The situation of Terracina is 
remarkable. It is a little, ancient, lazy Italian town, 25 
on the frontiers of the Roman territory. There seems 
to be an idle pause in everything about the place. 
The Mediterranean spreads before it — that sea without 
flux or reflux. The port is without a sail, excepting 

13. Corpo di Bacco. "By the body of Bacchus.'* A common Italian 
exclamation. 

24. Theodric. The King of the Ostrogoths. His army overran Italy at 
the end of the fifth century. 



42 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

that once in a while a solitary felucca may be seen dis- 
gorging its holy cargo of baccala, or codfish, the meager 
provision for the quaresima, or Lent. The inhabit- 
ants are apparently a listless, heedless race, as people 
5 of soft sunny climates are apt to be; but under this 
passive, indolent exterior are said to lurk dangerous 
qualities. They are supposed by many to be little 
better than the banditti of the neighboring mountains, 
and indeed to hold a secret correspondence with them. 

10 The solitary watch-towers, erected here and there 
along the coast, speak of pirates and corsairs that 
hover about these shores ; while the low huts, as sta- 
tions for soldiers, which dot the distant road, as it 
winds up through an olive grove, intimate that in the 

15 ascent there is danger for the traveler, and facility 
for the bandit. Indeed, it is between this town and 
Fondi that the road to Naples is most infested by ban- 
ditti. It has several windings and solitary places, 
where the robbers are enabled to see the traveler from 

20 a distance, from the brows of the hills or impending 
precipices, and to lie in wait for him at lonely and diffi- 
cult passes. 

The Italian robbers are a desperate class of men, 
that have almost formed themselves into an order of 

25 society. They wear a kind of uniform, or rather cos- 
tume, which openly designates their profession. This 
is probably done to diminish its skulking, lawless 
character, and to give it something of a military air in 
the eyes of the common people ; or, perhaps, to catch by 

30 outward show and finery the fancies of the young men 

1. Felucca. A light lateen-rigged vessel used on the Mediterranean. 



THE INN A T TERRA CINA 43 

of the villages, and thus to gain recruits. Their dresses 
are often very rich and picturesque. They wear jack- 
ets and breeches of bright colors, sometimes gayly em- 
broidered ; their breasts are covered with medals and 
relics ; their hats are broad-brimmed, with conical s 
crowns, decorated with feathers, or variously-colored 
ribbons; their hair is sometimes gathered in silk nets; 
they wear a kind of sandal of cloth or leather, bound 
round the legs with thongs, and extremely flexible, to 
enable them to scramble with ease and celerity among 10 
the mountain precipices ; a broad belt of cloth, or a sash 
of silk net, is stuck full of pistols and stilettos ; a carbine 
is slung at the back; while about them is generally 
thrown, in a negligent manner, a great dingy mantle, 
which serves as a protection in storms, or a bed in 15 
their bivouacs among the mountains. 

They range over a great extent of wild country, along 
the chain of Apennines, bordering on different states ; 
they know all the difficult passes, the short cuts for 
retreat, and the impracticable forests of the mountain 20 
summits, where no force dare follow them. They are 
secure of the good-will of the inhabitants of those 
regions, a poor and semi-barbarous race, whom they 
never disturb and often enrich. Indeed, they are con- 
sidered as a sort of illegitimate heroes among the 25 
mountain villages, and in certain frontier towns where 
they dispose of their plunder. Thus countenanced, and 
sheltered, and secure in the fastnesses of their mount- 
ains, the robbers have set the weak police of the Ital- 
ian states at defiance. It is in vain that their names 3° 
and descriptions are posted on the doors of country 
churches, and rewards offered for them alive or dead ; 



44 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

the villagers are either too much awed by the terrible 
instances of vengeance inflicted by the brigands, or 
have too good an understanding with them to be their 
betrayers. It is true they are now and then hunted 

5 and shot down like beasts of prey by the gens-d'armes^ 
their heads put in iron cages, and stuck upon posts 
by the roadside, or their limbs hung up to blacken in 
the trees near the places where they have committed 
their atrocities ; but these ghastly spectacles only serve 

10 to make some dreary pass of the road still more dreary, 
and to dismay the traveler, without deterring the 
bandit. 

At the time that the estafette made his sudden ap- 
pearance almost in cuerpo^ as has been mentioned, the 

15 audacity of the robbers had risen to an unparalleled 
height. They had laid villas under contribution ; they 
had sent messages into country towns, to tradesmen 
and rich burghers, demanding supplies of money, of 
clothing, or even of luxuries, with menaces of venge- 

2oance in case of refusal. They had their spies and 
emissaries in every town, village, and inn, along the 
principal roads, to give them notice of the movements 
and quality of travelers. They had plundered carriages, 
carried people of rank and fortune into the mount- 

25ains, and obliged them to write for heavy ransoms, 
and had committed outrages on females who had fallen 
into their hands. 

Such was briefly the state of the robbers, or rather 
such was the account of the rumors prevalent con- 



5. Qens=d'Arnies. Police. 

14. In Cuerpo. In Spanish, the phrase in cuerpo de camisa means half 
dressed. 



THE INN AT TERRA C IN A 45 

cerning them, when the scene took place at the inn of 
Terracina. The dark handsome young man and the 
Venetian lady, incidentally mentioned, had arrived 
early that afternoon in a private carriage drawn by 
mules, and attended by a single servant. They had 5 
been recently married, were spending the honeymoon 
in traveling through these delicious countries, and 
were on their way to visit a rich aunt of the bride at 
Naples. 

The lady was young, and tender, and timid. The 10 
stories she had heard along the road had filled her with 
apprehension, not more for herself than for her hus- 
band ; for though she had been married almost a month, 
she still loved him almost to idolatry. When she 
reached Terracina, the rumors of the road had increased 15 
to an alarming magnitude; and the sight of two rob- 
bers' skulls, grinning in iron cages, on each side of the 
old gateway of the town, brought her to a pause. Her 
husband had tried in vain to reassure her, they had 
lingered all the afternoon at the inn, until it was too 20 
late to think of starting that evening, and the parting 
words of the estafette completed her affright. 

" Let us return to Rome," said she, putting her arm 
within her husband's, and drawing towards him as if 
for protection. — '' Let us return to Rome, and give up 25 
this visit to Naples." 

" And give up the visit to your aunt, too ? " said the 
husband. 

" Nay — what is my aunt in comparison with yoxn: 
safety ? " said she, looking up tenderly in his face. 30 

There was something in her tone and manner that 
showed she really was thinking more of her husband's 



46 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

safety at the moment than of her own ; and being so 
recently married, and a match of pure affection, too, it 
is very possible that she was ; at least her husband 
thought so. Indeed, any one who has heard the sweet 
5 musical tone of a Venetian voice, and the melting ten- 
derness of a Venetian phrase, and felt the soft witch- 
ery of a Venetian eye, would not wonder at the hus- 
band's believing whatever they professed. He clasped 
the white hand that had been laid within his, put his 

10 arm round her slender waist, and drawing her fondly 
to his bosom, " This night, at least," said he, " we will 
pass at Terracina." 

Crack ! crack ! crack ! crack ! crack ! Another ap- 
parition of the road attracted the attention of mine host 

15 and his guests. From the direction of the Pontine 
marshes, a carriage, drawn by half a dozen horses, 
came driving at a furious rate; the postilions smacking 
their whips like mad, as is the case when conscious of 
the greatness or of the munificence of their fare. It 

20 was a landaulet with a servant mounted on the dickey. 
The compact, highly finished, yet proudly simple con- 
struction of the carriage ; the quantity of neat, well- 
arranged trunks and conveniences ; the loads of box- 
coats on the dickey; the fresh, burly, bluff -looking 

25 face of the master at the window ; and the ruddy, 
round-headed servant, in close-cropped hair, short coat, 
drab breeches, and long gaiters, all proclaimed at once 
that this was the equipage of an Englishman. 

" Horses to Fondi," said the Englishman, as the 

30 landlord came bowing to the carriage -door. 

" Would not his Excellenza alight, and take some 
refreshments ? " 



I 



THE INN A T TERRA CINA 47 

" No — he did not mean to eat until he got to Fondi." 

" But the horses will be some time in getting ready." 

" Ah ! that 's always the way ; nothing but delay in 
this cursed country ! " 

" If his Excellenza would only walk into the 5 
house " 

" N^o, no, no ! — I tell you no ! — I want nothing but 
horses, and as quick as possible. John, see that the 
horses are got ready, and don't let us be kept here an 
hour or two. Tell him if we 're delayed over the time, 10 
I '11 lodge a complaint with the postmaster." 

John touched his hat, and set oft* to obey his mas- 
ter's orders with the taciturn obedience of an English 
servant. 

In the meantime the Englishman got out of the car- 15 
riage, and walked up and down before the inn, with 
his hands in his pockets, taking no notice of the crowd 
of idlers who were gazing at him and his equipage. 
He was tall, stout, and well made; dressed with neat- 
ness and precision ; wore a traveling cap of the color 20 
of gingerbread ; and had rather an unhappy expression 
about the corners of his mouth : partly from not having 
yet made his dinner, and partly from not having 
been able to get on at a greater rate than seven miles 
an hour. Not that he had any other cause for haste 25 
than an Englishman's usual hurry to get to the end of 
a journey; or, to use the regular phrase, " to get on." 
Perhaps, too, he was a little sore from having been 
fleeced at every stage. 

After some time, the servant returned from the stable 30 
with a look of some perplexity. 

^' Are the horses ready, John ? " 



48 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

" No, sir — I never saw such a place. There's no get- 
ting anything done. I think your honor had better 
step into the house and get something to eat; it will be 
a long while before we get to Fundy." 
5 " D — n the house — it 's a mere trick — I '11 not eat any- 
thing, just to spite them," said the Englishman, still 
more crusty at the prospect of being so long without 
his dinner. 

" They say your honor 's very wrong," said John, " to 
10 set off at this late hour. The road 's full of highway- 
men." 

" Mere tales to get custom." 

" The estafette which passed us was stopped by a 
whole gang," said John, increasing his emphasis with 
15 each additional piece of information. 

" I don't believe a word of it." ' 

" They robbed him of his breeches," said John, 
giving at the same time a hitch to his own waist- 
band. 
20 " All humbug ! " 

Here the dark handsome young man stepped for- 
ward, and addressing the Englishman very politely, in 
broken English, invited him to partake of a repast he 
was about to make. 
25 "Thank'ee," said the Englishman, thrusting his 
hands deeper into his pockets, and casting a slight 
side-glance of suspicion at the young man, as if he 
thought, from his civility, he must have a design upon 
his purse. 
30 "We shall be most happy, if you will do us the 
favor," said the lady, in her soft Venetian dialect. 
There was a sweetness in her accents that was most^ 



THE INN AT TERRACINA 49 

persuasive. The Englishman cast a look upon her 
countenance ; her beauty was still more eloquent. His 
features instantly relaxed. He made a polite bow. 
" With great pleasure, Signora," said he. 

In short, the eagerness to " get on " was suddenly 5 
slackened ; the determination to famish himself as far 
as Fondi, by way of punishing the landlord, was aban- 
doned ; John chose an apartment in the inn for his 
master's reception : and preparations were made to 
remain there until morning. 10 

The carriage was unpacked of such of its contents as 
were indispensable for the night. There was the usual 
parade of trunks and writing-desks, and portfolios and 
dressing-boxes, and those other oppressive conveniences 
w^hich burden a comfortable man. The observant loi- 15 
terers about the inn-door, wrapped up in great dirt- 
colored cloaks, with only a hawk's-eye uncovered, made 
many remarks to each other on this quantity of lug- 
gage that seemed enough for an army. The domestics 
of the inn talked with wonder of the splendid dressing- 20 
case, with its gold and silver furniture, that was spread 
out on the toilet- table, and the bag of gold that chinked 
as it was taken out of the trunk. The strange Milor's 
wealth, and the treasures he carried about him, were 
the talk, that evening, over all Terracina. 25 

The Englishman took some time to make his ablu- 
tions and arrange his dress for table ; and, after con- 
siderable labor and effort in putting himself at his ease, 
made his appearance, with stiff white cravat, his clothes 
free from the least speck of dust, and adjusted with 30 
precision. He made a civil bow on entering in the 
unprofessing English way, which the fair Venetian, 
4 



50 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

accustomed to the complimentary salutations of the 
Continent, considered extremely cold. 

The supper, as it was termed by the Italian, or din- 
ner, as the Englishman called it, was now served : 
5 heaven and earth, and the waters under the earth, had 
been moved to furnish it ; for there were birds of the air, 
and beasts of the field, and fish of the sea. The Eng- 
lishman's servant, too, had turned the kitchen topsy- 
turvy in his zeal to cook his master a beefsteak ; and 

10 made his appearance, loaded with ketchup, and soy, 
and Cayenne pepper, and Ilarvey sauce, and a bottle 
of port wine, from that warehouse, the carriage, in 
which his master seemed desirous of carrying Eng- 
land about the world with him. Indeed the repast was 

1 5 one of those Italian farragoes which require a little 
qualifying. The tureen of soup was a black sea, with 
livers, and limbs, and fragments of all kinds of birds 
and beasts floating like wrecks about it. A meager- 
winged animal, which my host called a delicate chicken, 

2o had evidently died of consumption. The macaroni was 
smoked. The beefsteak was tough buffalo's flesh. 
There was what appeared to be a dish of stewed eels 
of which the Englishman ate with great relish ; but had 
nearly refunded them when told that they were vipers, 

25 caught among the rocks of Terracina, and esteemed a 
great delicacy. 

Nothing, however, conquers a traveler's spleen 
sooner than eating, whatever may be the cookery ; and 
nothing brings him into good-humor with his company 

30 sooner than eating together; the Englishman, there- 
fore, had not half finislied his repast and his bottle, 
before he began to think the Venetian a very tolerable 



THE INN A T TERRA CINA 5 1 

fellow for a foreigner, and his wife almost handsome 
enough to be an Englishwoman. 

In the course of the repast, the usual topics of trav- 
elers were discussed, and among others, the reports of 
robbers, which harassed the mind of the fair Venetian. 5 
The landlord and waiter dipped into the conversation 
with that familiarity permitted on the Continent, and 
served up so many bloody tales as they served up 
dishes, that they almost frightened away the poor 
lady's appetite. The Englishman, who had a national 10 
antipathy to everything technically called "humbug," 
listened to them all with a certain screw of the mouth, 
expressive of incredulity. There was the well-known 
story of the school of Terracina, captured by the rob- 
bers ; and one of the scholars cruelly massacred, in order 15 
to bring the parents to terms for the ransom of the 
rest. And another, of a gentleman of Rome, Avho re- 
ceived his son's ear in a letter, with information, that 
his son would be remitted to him in this way, by in- 
stalments, until he paid the required ransom. 20 

The fair Venetian shuddered as she heard these 
tales ; and the landlord, like a true narrator of the 
terrible, doubled the dose when he saw how it 
operated. He was just proceeding to relate the mis- 
fortunes of a great English lord and his family, when 25 
the Englishman, tired of his volubility, interrupted 
him, and pronounced these accounts to be mere trav- 
elers' tales, or the exaggerations of ignorant peasants, 
and designing innkeepers. The landlord was indig- 
nant at the doubt leveled at his stories, and the innu- 
endo leveled at his cloth; he cited, in corroboratioUj 
half a dozen tales still more terrible. 



52 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

"I don't believe a word of them," said the English- 
man. 

" But the robbers have been tried and executed ! " 
" All a farce ! " 
5 "But their heads are stuck up along the road ! " 
" Old skulls accumulated during a century." 
The landlord muttered to himself as he went out at 
the door, " San Gennaro ! quanto sono singolari questi 
iDglesi!" 
lo A fresh hubbub outside of the inn announced the 
arrival of more travelers ; and, from the variety of 
voices, or rather of clamors, the clattering of hoofs, 
the rattling of wheels, and the general uproar both 
within and without, the arrival seemed to be nu- 
15 merous. 

It was, in fact, the procaccio and its convoy : a kind 
of caravan which sets out on certain days for the 
transportation of merchandise, with an escort of 
soldiery to protect it from the robbers. Travelers avail 
20 themselves of its protection, and a long file of car- 
riages generally accompany it. 

A considerable time elapsed before either landlord 
or waiter returned ; being hurried hither and thither 
by that tempest of noise and bustle, which takes 
25 place in an Italian inn on the arrival of any con- 
siderable accession of custom. When mine host reap- 
peared, there was a smile of triumph on his counte- 
nance. 

" Perhaps," said he, as he cleared the table, 
30 "perhaps the signor has not heard of what has 
happened ? " 

8, San Gennaro, etc. How strange these English are 1 



THE INN AT TERR AC IN A 



S3 



" What ? " said the Englishman, dryly. 

" Why, the procaccio has brought accounts of fresh 
exploits of the robbers." 

"Pish!" 

" There's more news of the English Milor and his 5 
family," said the host, exultingly. 

" An English lord ? What English lord ? " 

"Milor Popkin." 

" Lord Popkins ? I never heard of such a title ! " 

" Oh ! sicuro a great nobleman, who passed through lo 
here lately with mi ladi and her daughters. A magni- 
fico, one of the grand counselors of London, an 
almanno ! " 

"Almanno — almanno? — tut — he means alderman." , 

"Sicuro — Aldermanno Popkin, and the Principessa iS 
Popkin, and the Signorine Popkin ? " said mine host, 
triumphantly. 

He now put himself into an attitude, and would 
have launched into a full detail, had he not been 
thwarted by the Englishman, who seemed determined '^^ 
neither to credit nor indulge him in his stories, but 
dryly motioned for him to clear away the table. 

An Italian tongue, however, is not easily checked ; 
that of mine host continued to wag with increasing 
volubility, as he conveyed the relics of the repast out 25 
of the room ; and the last that could be distinguished 
of his voice, as it died away along the corridor, was 
the iteration of the favorite word, Popkin — Popkin — 
Popkin — pop — pop — pop. 

The arrival of the procaccio had, indeed, filled the 30 
house with stories, as it had with guests. The 
Englishman and his companions walked after supper 



54 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

up and down the large hall, or common room of the 
inn, which ran through the center of the building. It 
was spacious and somewhat dirty, with tables placed 
in various parts, at which groups of travelers were 
5 seated; while others strolled about, waiting, in fam- 
ished impatience, for tlieir evening's meal. 

It was a heterogeneous assemblage of people of all 
ranks and countries, who had arrived in all kinds of 
vehicles. Though distinct knots of travelers, yet the 

10 traveling together, under one common escort, had 
jumbled them into a certain degree of companionship 
on the road ; besides, on the Continent travelers are 
always familiar, and nothing is more motley than the 
groups which gather casually together in sociable con- 

15 versation in the public rooms of inns. 

The formidable number, and formidable guard of 
the procaccio had prevented any molestation from 
banditti ; but every party of travelers had its tale of 
wonder, and one carriage vied w4th another in its 

20 budget of assertions and surmises. Fierce, whiskered 
faces had been seen peering over the rocks ; carbines 
and stilettos gleaming from among the bushes ; suspi- 
cious-looking fellows, with flapped hats, and scowling 
eyes, had occasionally reconnoitered a straggling 

25 carriage, but had disappeared on seeing the guard. 

The fair Venetian listened to all these stories with 
that avidity with which we always pamper any feel- 
ing of alarm ; even the Englishman began to feel in- 
terested in the common topic, desirous of getting more 

30 correct information than mere flying reports. Con- 
quering, therefore, that shyness which is prone to 
keep an Englishman solitary in crowds, he approached 



THE INN A T TERRACINA 55 

one of the talking groups, the oracle of which was a 
tall, thin Italian, with long aquiline nose, a high fore- 
head, and lively prominent eye, beaming from under 
a green velvet traveling-cap, with gold tassel. He 
was of Rome, a surgeon by profession, a poet by s 
choice, and something of an improvisators 

In the present instance, however, he was talking in 
plain prose, but holding forth with the fluency of one 
who talks well, and likes to exert his talent. A ques- 
tion or two from the Englishman drew copious replies; 10 
for an Englishman sociable among strangers is regarded 
as a phenomenon on the Continent, and always treated 
with attention for the rarity's sake. The improvisa- 
tore gave much the same account of the banditti that 
I have already furnished. 15 

"But why does not the police exert itself, and root 
them out?" demanded the Englishman. 

''Because the police is too weak, and the banditti 
are too strong," replied the other. " To root them out 
would be a more difficult task than you imagine. 20 
They are connected and almost identified with the 
mountain peasantry and the people of the villages. 
The numerous bands have an understanding with each 
other, and with the country round. A gendarme can- 
not stir without their being aware of it. They have 25 
their scouts everywhere, who lurk about towns, vil- 
lages, and inns, mingle in every crowd, and pervade 
every place of resort. I should not be surprised if 
some one should be supervising us at this moment." 

The fair Venetian- looked round fearfully, and turned 30- 
pale. 

6. Improvisatore. One who can recite impromptu verses. 



56 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

Here the improvisatore was interrupted by a lively 
Neapolitan lawyer. 

" By the way," said he, " I recollect a little advent- 
ure of a learned doctor, a friend of mine, which hap- 
5 pened in this very neighborhood ; not far from the 
ruins of Theodric's Castle, which are on the top of 
those great rocky heights above the town." 

A wish was, of course, expressed to hear the advent- 
ure of the doctor, by all excepting the improvisatore^ 
10 who, being fond of talking and of hearing himself talk, 
and accustomed, moreover, to harangue without inter- 
ruption, looked rather annoyed at being checked when 
in full career. The Neapolitan, however, took no 
notice of his chagrin, but related the following anec- 
15 dote. 



Adventure of the Little 
Antiquary 

My friend, the Doctor, was a thorough antiquary ; 
a little rusty, musty, old fellow, always groping among 
ruins. He relished a building as you Englishmen 
relish a cheese, — the more mouldy and crumbling it 

20 was, the more it suited his taste. A shell of an old 
nameless temple, or the cracked walls of a broken- 
down amphitheater, would throw him into raptures ; 
and he took more delight in these crusts and cheese- 
parings of antiquity, than in the best-conditioned 

25 modern palaces. 



ADVENTURE OF THE LITTLE ANTIQUARY 57 

He was a curious collector of coins also, and had just 
gained an accession of wealth that almost turned his 
brain. He had picked up, for instance, several Roman 
Consulars, half a Roman As, two Funics, which had 
doubtless belonged to the soldiers of Hannibal, having 5 
been found on the very spot where they had encamped 
among the Apennines. He had, moreover, one Sam- 
nite, struck after the Social War, and a Philistis, a 
queen that never existed ; but above all, he valued 
himself upon a coin, indescribable to any but the 10 
initiated in these matters, bearing a cross on one side 
and a pegasus on the other, and which, by some anti- 
quarian logic, the little man adduced as an historical 
document, illustrating the progress of Christianity. 

All these precious coins he carried about him in a 15 
leathern purse, buried deep in a pocket of his little 
black breeches. 

The last maggot he had taken into his brain was to 
hunt after the ancient cities of the Pelasgi, which are 
said to exist to this day among the mountains of the 20 
Abruzzi ; but about which a singular degree of ob- 
scurity prevails.^ He had made many discoveries con- 

4. Consulars. Coins in use when Rome was governed by the consuls. 
4. Roman As. A copper coin, originally a pound in weight, but gradu- 
ally reduced to half an ounce in weight. 
4. Funics. Coins struck at the time of the Roman wars with Carthage. 

7. Samnite. Samnium, in the central part of Italy, was an opponent 
of Rome in the social war of the first century B.C. See any Roman history. 

8. Philistis. Traditional queen of Syracuse. 

19. Pelasgi. The prehistoric inhabitants of Italy. 

* Among the many fond speculations of antiquaries is that of the exist- 
ence of traces of the ancient Pelasgian cities in the Apennines ; and man^y 
a wistful eye is cast by the traveler, versed in antiquarian lore, at the 
richly-wooded mountains of the Abruzzi, as a forbidden fairyland of re- 
search. These spots, so beautiful, yet so inaccessible, from the rudeness 
of their inhabitants and the hordes of banditti which infest them, are a 
region of fable to the learned. Sometimes a wealthy virtuoso, whose 
purse and whose consequence could command a military escort, has pene- 



4^ 



58 TALES OF A TEA VELER 

cerning them, and had recorded a great many valuable 
notes and memorandums on the subject, in a voluminous 
book, which he always carried about with him ; either 
for the purpose of frequent reference, or through fear i^ 

5 lest the precious document should fall into the hands 
of brother antiquaries. He had, therefore, a large 
pocket in the skirt of his coat, where he bore about 
this inestimable tome, banging against his rear as he 
walked. 

lo Thus heavily laden with the spoils of antiquity, the 
good little man, during a sojourn at Terracina, mounted 
one day the rocky cliffs which overhang the town, to 
visit the castle of Theodric. He was groping about 
the ruins towards the hour of sunset, buried in his re- 

15 flections, his wits no doubt wool-gathering among the 
Goths and Romans, when he heard footsteps behind 
him. 

He turned, and beheld five or six young fellows, of 

trated to some individual point among the mountains ; and sometimes a 
wandering artist or student, under protection of poverty or insignificance, 
has brought away some vague account, only calculated to give a keener 
edge to curiosity and conjecture. 

By those who maintain the existence of the Pelasgian cities, it is affirmed" 
that the formation of the different kingdoms in the Peloponnesus gradu- . 
ally caused the expulsion thence of the Pelasgi ; but that their great migra- ■ 
tion may be dated from the finishing the wall around Acropolis and that* 
at this period they came to Italy. To these, in the spirit of theory, they I 
would ascribe the introduction of the elegant arts into the country. It isj 
evident, however, that, as barbarians flying before the first dawn of civiliza-* 
tion, they could bring little with them superior to the inventions of the 
aborigines, and nothing that would have survived to the antiquarian 
through such a lapse of ages. It would appear more probable, that 
these cities, improperly termed Pelasgian, were coeval with many that 
hav.e been discovered. The romantic Aricia, built by Hippolytus before 
the siege of Troy, and the poetic Tibur, Osculate, and Proenes, built 
by Telegonus after the dispersion of the Greeks ;— these, lying contiguous 
to inhabited and cultivated spots, have been discovered. There are others, 
too, on the ruins of which the latter and more civilized Grecian colonists 
have ingrafted themselves, and which have become known by their merits 
or their medals. But that there are many still undiscovered, imbedded 
in the Abruzzi, it is the delight of the antiquarians to fancy. Strange 
that such a virgin soil for research, such an unknown realm of knowl- 
edge, should at this day remain in the very center of hackneyed Italy! 
[Irving's Note. See Suggestions to Teachers and Students^] 



ADVENTURE OF THE LITTLE ANTIQUARY 59 

rough, saucy demeanor, clad in a singular manner, half 
peasant, half huntsman, with carbines in their hands. 
Their whole appearance and carriage left him no doubt 
into what company he had fallen. 

The Doctor was a feeble little man, poor in look, and 5 
poorer in purse. He had but little gold or silver to be 
robbed of ; but then he had his curious ancient coin in 
his breeches pocket. He had, moreover, certain other 
valuables, such as an old silver watch, thick as a 
turnip, with figures on it large enough for a clock ; 10 
and a set of seals at the end of a steel chain, dangling 
half way down to his knees. All these were of pre- 
cious esteem, being family relics. He had also a seal 
ring, a veritable antique intaglio, that covered half his 
knuckles. It was a Venus, which the old man almost 15 
worshiped with the zeal of a voluptuary. But what 
he most valued was his inestimable collection of hints 
relative to the Pelasgian cities, which he would gladly 
have given all the money in his pocket to have had 
safe at the bottom of his trunk at Terracina. 20 

However, he plucked up a stout heart, at least as 
otout a heart as he could, seeing that he was but a 
ounny little man at the best of times. So he wished 
!:he hunters a huon giorno. They returned his salu- 
ation, givhig the old gentleman a sociable slap on the 25 
back that made his heart leap into his throat. 

They fell into conversation, and walked for some 
time together among the heights, the Doctor wishing 
them all the while at the bottom of the crater of 
Vesuvius. At length they came to a small osteria^o 

24. Buon Giorno. Good-day. 
30. Osteria. Hostelry. 



6o TALES OF A TRA VELER 

on the mountain, where they proposed to enter and 
have a cup of wine together ; the Doctor consented, 
though he would as soon have been invited to drink 
hemlock. 
5 One of the gang remained sentinel at the door; the 
others swaggered into the house, stood, their guns in 
the corner of the room, and each drawing a pistol or 
stiletto out of his belt, laid it upon the table. They 
now drew benches round the board, called lustily for 

10 wine, and, hailing the Doctor as though he had been a 
boon companion of long standing, insisted upon his 
sitting down and making merry. 

The worthy man complied with forced grimace, 
but with fear and trembling ; sitting uneasily on the 

^5 edge of his chair; eying ruefully the black-muzzled, 
pistols, and cold, naked stilettos ; and supping down 
heartburn with every drop of liquor. His new com- 
rades, however, pushed the bottle bravely, and plied 
him vigorously. They sang, they laughed; told excel- 

20 lent stories of their robberies and combats, mingled 
with many ruffian jokes, and the little Doctor was 
fain to laugh at all their cut-throat pleasantries, 
though his heart was dying away at the very bottom of 
his bosom. 

25 By their own account, they were young men from 
the villages, who had recently taken up this line of life 
out of the wild caprice of youth. They talked of their 
murderous exploits as a sportsman talks of his amuse- 
ments : to shoot down a traveler seemed of little more 

30 consequence to them than to shoot a hare. They spoke 
with rapture of the glorious roving life they led, free 
as birds; here to-day, gone to-morrow; ranging the 



ADVENTURE OF THE LITTLE ANTIQUARY 6 1 

forests, climbing the rocks, scouring the valleys ; the 
world their own wherever they could lay hold of it; 
full purses — merry companions — pretty women. The 
little antiquary got fuddled with their talk and their 
wine, for they did not spare bumpers. He half forgot 5 
his fears, his seal-ring, and his family watch ; even 
the treatise on the Pelasgian cities, which was warm- 
ing under him, for a time faded from his memory in the 
glowing picture that they drew. He declares that he 
no longer wonders at the prevalence of this robber 10 
mania among the mountains ; for he felt at the time, 
that, had he been a young man, and a strong man, 
and had there been no danger of the galleys in the 
background, he should have been half tempted himself 
to turn bandit. 15 

At length the hour of separating arrived. The 
Doctor was suddenly called to himself and his fears by 
seeing the robbers resume their weapons. He now 
quaked for his valuables, and above all, for his anti- 
quarian treatise. He endeavored, however, to look cool 20 
and unconcerned; and drew forth from his deep 
pocket a long, lank, leather purse, far gone in con- 
sumption, at the bottom of which a few coin chinked 
with the trembling of his hand. 

The chief of the party observed his movement, and 25 
laying his hand upon the antiquary's shoulder, "Har- 
kee ! Signor Dottore ! " said he, " we have drunk 
together as friends and comrades ; let us part as such. 
We understand you. We know who and what you are, 
for we know who everybody is that sleeps at Terra- 30 
cina, or that puts foot upon the road. You are a rich 

27. Signor Dottore. Sir Doctor. 



62 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

man, but you carry all your wealth in your head : we 
cannot get at it, and we should not know what to do 
with it if we could. I see you are uneasy about your 
ring; but don't worry yourself, it is not worth taking; 
5 you think it an antique, but it's a counterfeit — a mere 
sham." 

Here the ire of the antiquary rose ; the Doctor for- 
got himself in his zeal for the character of his ring. 
Heaven and earth I his Venus a sham ! Had they pro- 

lonounced the wife of his bosom ''no better than she 
should be," he could not have been more indignant. 
He fired up in vindication of his intaglio. 

" Nay, nay," continued the robber, " we have no time 
to dispute about it; value it as you please. Come, 

15 you're a brave little old signor — one more cup of wine, 
and we'll pay the reckoning. No compliment — you 
shall not pay a grain — you are our guest — I insist upon 
it. So — now make the best of your way back to Ter- 
racina; it's growing late. Buono viaggio f And 

20 harkee ! take care how you wander among these mount- 
ains, — you may not always fall into such good com- 
pany." 

They shouldered their guns ; sprang gayly up the 
rocks; and the little Doctor hobbled back to Terracina, 

25 rejoicing that the robbers had left his watch, his coins, 
and his treatise, unmolested ; but still indignant that 
they should have pronounced his Venus an impostor. 



The improvisatore had shown many symptoms of 
impatience during this recital. He saw his theme in 

19. Buono viaggio. A pleasant journey to you. 



ADVENTURE OE THE LITTLE ANTIQUARY 63 

danger of being taken out of his hands, which to an 
able talker is always a grievance, but to an improvisa- 
tore is an absolute calamity : and then for it to be taken 
away by a Neapolitan was still more vexatious ; the in- 
habitants of the different Italian states having an im- 5 
placable jealousy of each other in all things, great and 
small. He took advantage of the first pause of the 
Neapolitan to catch hold again of the thread of the 
conversation. 

" As I observed before," said he, " the prowlings of 10 
the banditti are so extensive ; they are so much in 
league with one another, and so interwoven with 
various ranks of society " 

"For that matter," said the Neapolitan, " I have 
heard that your government has had some understand- 15 
ing with those gentry ; or, at least, has winked at their 
misdeeds." 

" My government ? " said the Roman, impatiently. 

"Ay, they say that Cardinal Gonsalvi " 

" Hush ! " said the Roman, holding up his finger, and 20 
rolling his large eyes about the room. 

" Nay, I only repeat what I heard commonly rumored 
in Rome," replied the Neapolitan, sturdily. " It was 
openly said, that the Cardinal had been up to the 
mountains and had an interview with some of the 25 
chiefs. And I have been told, moreover, that while 
honest people have been kicking their heels in the 
Cardinal's antechamber, waiting by the hour for ad- 
mittance, one of those stiletto-looking fellows has 
elbowed his way through the crowd, and entered with- ^o 
out ceremony into the Cardinal's presence." 

19. Cardinal Gonsalvi. A papal official in the time of Pius VII. 



64 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

" I know," observed the irnpromsatore^ " that there 
have been such reports, and it is not impossible that 
government may have made use of these men at par- 
ticular periods : such as at the time of your h\te abor- 
Stive revolution, when your carbonari were so busy 
with their machinations all over the country. The in- 
formation which such men could collect, who were 
familiar, not merely with recesses and secret places of 
the mountains, but also with the dark and dangerous 

10 recesses of society ; who knew every suspicious char- 
acter, and all his movements and all his lurkings ; in 
a word, who knew all that was plotting in a world of 
mischief ; — the utility of such men as instruments in 
the hands of government was too obvious to be over- 

15 looked; and Cardinal Gonsalvi, as a politic statesman, 
may, perhaps, have made use of them. Besides, he 
knew that, with all their atrocities, the robbers were 
always respectful towards the church, and devout in 
their religion." 

20 " Religion! religion! " echoed the Englishman. 

" Yes, religion," repeated the Roman. " They have 
each their patron saint. They will cross themselves 
and say their prayers, whenever, in their mountain 
haunts, they hear the matin or the Ave Maria bells 

25 sounding from the valleys ; and will often descend from 
their retreats, and run imminent risks to visit some 
favorite shrine. I recollect an instance in point. 

" I was one evening in the village of Frascati, which 
stands on the beautiful brow of a hill rising from the 



5. Abortive Revolution. In 1820. An uprising against Ferdinand I, 
5. Curboni. A political society. 



ADVENTURE OF THE LITTLE ANTIQUARY 65 

Campagna, just below the Abruzzi mountains. The 
people, as is usual in fine evenings in our Italian towns 
and villages, were recreating themselves in the open 
air, and chatting in groups in the public square. While 
I was conversing with a knot of friends, I noticed a 5 
tall fellow, wrapped in a great mantle, passing across 
the square, but skulking along in the dusk, as if anxious 
to avoid observation. The people drew back as he 
passed. It was whispered to me that he was a notorious 
bandit." 10 

"But why was he not immediately seized?" said 
the Englishman. 

" Because it was nobody's business ; because nobody 
wished to incur the vengeance of his comrades ; be- 
cause there were not sufiicient gendarmes nenv to in-iS 
sure security against the number of desperadoes he 
might have at hand; because the gendarmes might not 
have received particular instructions with respect to 
him, and might not feel disposed to engage in a hazard- 
ous conflict without compulsion. In short, I might 20 
give you a thousand reasons rising out of the state of 
our government and manners, not one of which after 
all might appear satisfactory." 

The Englishman shrugged his shoulders with an air 
of contempt. 25 

" I have been told," added the Roman, rather quickly, 
" that even in your metropolis of London, notorious 
thieves, well known to the police as such, walk the 
streets at noonday in search of their prey, and are not 
molested unless caught in the very act of robbery." 30 



14. The Campagna. The low-lying district about Rome, 

5 



66 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

The Englishman gave another shrug, but with a dif- 
ferent expression. 

" Well, sir, I fixed my eye on this daring wolf, thus 
prowling through the fold, and saw him enter a church. 
5 1 was curious to witness his devotion. You know our 
spacious magnificent churches. The one in which he 
entered was vast, and shrouded in the dusk of evening. 
At the extremity of the long aisles a couple of tapers 
feebly glimmered on the grand altar. In one of the 

loside chapels was a votive candle placed before the 
image of a saint. Before this image the robber had 
prostrated himself. His mantle partly falling off from 
his shoulders as he knelt, revealed a form of Herculean 
strength ; a stiletto and pistol glittered in his belt ; 

15 and the light, falling on his countenance, showed feat- 
ures not unhandsome, but strongly and fiercely char- 
acterized. As he prayed, he became vehemently agi- 
tated ; his lips quivered ; sighs and murmurs, almost 
groans, burst from him ; he beat his breast with vio- 

2olence; then clasped his hands and wrung them convul- 
sively, as he extended them towards the image. Never 
had I seen such a terrific picture of remorse. I felt 
fearful of being discovered watching him, and with- 
drew. Shortly afterwards, I saw him issue from the 

25 church wrapped in his mantle. He re-crossed the 
square, and no doubt returned to the mountains with 
a disburdened conscience, ready to incur a fresh arrear 
of crime." 

Having secured the attention and awakened the 

30 curiosity of the by-standers, he paused for a moment, 
rolled up his large eyes as improvisatori are apt to do 
when they would recollect an impromptu, and then re- 



THE BELA TED TRA VELERS 67 

lated with great dramatic effect the following story, 
which had, doubtless, been well prepared and digested 
beforehand. 



The Belated Travelers 

It was late one evening that a carriage, drawn by- 
mules, slowly toiled its way up one of the passes of 5 
the Apennines. It was through one of the wildest de- 
files, where a hamlet occurred only at distant inter- 
vals, perched on the summit of some rocky height, or 
the white towers of a convent peeped out from among 
the thick mountain foliage. The carriage was of an- 10 
cient and ponderous construction. Its faded embellish- 
ments spoke of former splendor, but its crazy springs 
and axle-trees creaked out the tale of present decline. 
Within was seated a tall, thin old gentleman, in a kind 
of military traveling-dress, and a foraging-cap trimmed 15 
with fur, though the gray locks which stole from 
under it hinted that his fighting days were over. Be- 
side him was a pale, beautiful girl of eighteen, dressed 
in something of a northern or Polish costume. One 
servant was seated in front, a rusty, crusty looking 20 
fellow, with a scar across his face, an orange-tawny 
schnurhart or pair of mustaches, bristling from under 
his nose, and altogether the air of an old soldier. 

It was, in fact, the equipage of a Polish nobleman ; 
a wreck of one of those princely families once of al- 25 



68 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

most oriental magnificence, but broken down and im- 
poverished by the disasters of Poland. The Count, 
like many other generous spirits, had been found 
guilty of the crime of patriotism, and was, in a man- 
Sner, an exile from his country. He had resided for 
some time in the first cities of Italy, for the education 
of his daughter, in whom all his cares and pleasures 
were now centered. He had taken her into society, 
where her beauty and her accomplishments gained her 

10 many admirers ; and had she not been the daughter of 
a poor broken-down Polish nobleman, it is more than 
probable. many would have contended for her hand. 
Suddenly, however, her health became delicate and 
drooping ; her gayety fled with the roses of her cheek, 

15 and she sank into silence and debility. The old Count 
saw the change with the solicitude of a parent. " We 
must try a change of air and scene," said he ; and in a 
few days the old family carriage was rumbling among 
the Apennines. 

20 Their only attendant was the veteran Caspar, who 
had been born in the family, and grown rusty in its 
service. He had followed his master in all his fort- 
unes; had fought by his side; had stood over him 
when fallen in battle; and had received, in his de- 

25fense, the saber-cut which added such grimness to his 
countenance. He was now his valet, his steward, his 
butler, his factotum. The only being that rivaled his 
master in his affections was his youthful mistress. 
She had grown up under his eye, he had led her by the 

30 hand when she was a child, and he now looked upon 
her with the fondness of a parent. Nay, he even took 
the freedom of a parent in giving his blunt opinion on 



THE BELA TED TRA VELERS 69 

all matters which he thought were for her good ; and 
felt a parent's vanity at seeing her gazed at and ad- 
mired. 

The evening was thickening; they had been for some 
time passing through narrow gorges of the mountains, 5 
along the edges of a tumbling stream. The scenery 
was lonely and savage. The rocks often beetled over 
the road, with flocks of white goats browsing on their 
brinks, and gazing down upon the travelers. They 
had between two or three leagues yet to go before they 10 
could reach any village ; yet the muleteer, Pietro, a tip- 
pling old fellow, who had refreshed himself at the last 
halting-place with a more than ordinary quantity of 
wine, sat singing and talking alternately to his mules, 
and suffering them to lag on at a snail's pace, in spite 15 
of the frequent entreaties of the Count and maledic- 
tions of Caspar. 

The clouds began to roll in heavy masses along the 
mountains, shrouding their summits from view. The 
air was damp and chilly. The count's solicitude on his 20 
daughter's account overcame his usual patience. He 
leaned from the carriage, and called to old Pietro in an 
angry tone. 

"Forward!" said he. "It will be midnight before 
we arrive at our inn." 25 

" Yonder it is, Signor," said the muleteer. 

"Where?" demanded the Count. 

"Yonder," said Pietro, pointing to a desolate pile 
about a quarter of a league distant. 

" That the place ? — why, it looks more like a ruin 30 
than an inn. I thought we Avere to put up for the night 
at a comfortable village." 



70 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

Here Pietro uttered a string of piteous exclamations 
and ejaculations, such as are ever at the tip of the 
tongue of a delinquent muleteer. " Such roads ! and 
such mountains ! and then his poor animals were way- 
5 worn, and leg- weary ; they would fall lame ; they would 
never be able to reach the village. And then what 
could his Excellenza wish for better than the inn ; a 
perfect castello — a palazzo — and such people ! — and 
such a larder ! — and such beds ! — His Excellenza might 

^o fare as sumptuously, and sleep as soundly there as a 
prince ! " 

The Count was easily persuaded, for he was anxious 
to get his daughter out of the night air ; so in a little 
while the old carriage rattled and jingled into the 

15 great gateway of the inn. 

The building did certainly in some measure answer 
to the muleteer's description. It was large enough for 
either castle or palace ; built in a strong, but simple and 
almost rude style ; with a great quantity of waste room. 

20 It had in fact been, in former times, a hunting-seat of 
one of the Italian princes. There was space enough 
within its walls and out-buildings to have accommo- 
dated a little army. A scanty household seemed now 
to people this dreary mansion. The faces that pre- 

25sented themselves on the arrival of the travelers were 
begrimed with dirt, and scowling in their expression. 
They all knew old Pietro, however, and gave him a 
welcome as he entered, singing and talking, and almost 
whooping, into the gateway. 

30 The hostess of the inn waited, herself, on the Count 
and his daughter, to show them the apartments. They 
WQre conducted through a long gloomy corridor, and 



THE BELATED TRAVELERS 71 

then through a suite of chambers opening into each 
other, with lofty ceilings, and great beams extending 
across them. Everything, however, had a wretched, 
squalid look. The walls were damp and bare, except- 
ing that here and there hung some great painting, large 5 
enough for a chapel, and blackened out of all distinc- 
tion. 

They chose two bedrooms, one within another ; the 
inner one for the daughter. The bedsteads were mas- 
sive and misshapen ; but on examining the beds so 10 
vaunted by old Pietro, they found them stuffed with 
fibers of hemp knotted in great lumps. The Count 
shrugged his shoulders, but there was no choice left. 

The chilliness of the apartments crept to their bones ; 
and they were glad to return to a common chamber or 15 
kind of hall, where was a fire burning in a huge cavern, 
miscalled a chimney. A quantity of green wood, just 
thrown on, puffed out volumes of smoke. The room 
corresponded to the rest of the mansion. The floor 
was paved and dirty. A great oaken table stood in the 20 
center, immovable from its size and weight. The only 
thing that contradicted this prevalent air of indigence 
was the dress of the hostess. She was a slattern of 
course; yet her garments, though dirty and negligent, 
were of costly materials. She wore several rings of 25 
great value on her fingers, and jewels in her ears, and 
round her neck was a string of large pearls, to which 
was attached a sparkling crucifix. She had the re- 
mains of beauty, yet there was something in the ex- 
pression of her countenance that inspired the young 30 
lady with singular aversion. She was officious and 
obsequious in her attentions, and both the Count and 



72 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

his daughter felt relieved, when she consigned them to 
the care of a dark, sullen-looking servant-maid, and 
went oft' to superintend the supper. 

Caspar was indignant at the muleteer for having, 
5 eibhtx through negligence or design, subjected his mas- 
ter and mistress to such quarters ; and vowed by his 
mustaches to have revenge on the old varlet the mo- 
ment they were safe out from among the mountains. 
He kept up a continual quarrel with the sulky servant- 

10 maid, which only served to increase the sinister ex- 
pression with which she regarded the travelers, from 
under her strong dark eyebrows. 

As to the Count, he was a good-humored passive 
traveler. Perhaps real misfortunes had subdued his 

15 spirit, and rendered him tolerant of many of those petty 
evils which make prosperous men miserable. He drew 
a large broken arm-chair to the fireside for his daughter, 
and another for himself, and seizing an enormous pair 
of tongs, endeavored to rearrange the wood so as to 

20 produce a blaze. His efforts, however, were only repaid 
by thicker puff's of smoke, which almost overcame the 
good gentleman's patience. He would draw back, cast 
a look upon his delicate daughter, then upon the cheer- 
less, squalid apartment, and, shrugging his shoulders, 

25 would give a fresh stir to the fire. 

Of all the miseries of a comfortless inn, however? 
there is none greater than sulky attendance ; the good 
Count for some time bore the smoke in silence, rather 
than address himself to the scowling servant-maid. At 

30 length he was compelled to beg for drier firewood. 
The woman retired muttering. On re-entering the 
room hastily, with an armful of fagots, her foot 



THE BELA TED TRA VELERS 73 

slipped ; she fell, and striking her head against the 
corner of a chair, cut her temple severely. 

The blow stunned her for a time, and the wound 
bled profusely. When she recovered, she found the 
Count's daughter administering to her wound, and 5 
binding it up with her own handkerchief. It was 
such an attention as any woman of ordinary feeling 
would have yielded; but perhaps there was something 
in the appearance of the lovely being who bent over 
her, or in the tones of her voice, that touched the 10 
heart of the woman, unused to being administered to 
by such hands. Certain it is, she was strongly 
affected. She caught the delicate hand of the Polo- 
naise, and pressed it fervently to her lips. 

*'May San Francesco watch over you, Signora!"i5 
exclaimed she. 

A new arrival broke the stillness of the inn; it was 
a Spanish princess with a numerous retinue. The 
court-yard was in an uproar ; the house in a bustle. 
The landlady hurried to attend such distinguished 20 
guests ; and the poor Count and his daughter, and 
their supper, were for a moment forgotten. The 
veteran Caspar muttered Polish maledictions enough 
to agonize an Italian ear; but it was impossible to con- 
vince the hostess of the superiority of his old master 25 
and young mistress to the whole nobility of Spain. 

The noise of the arrival had attracted the daughter 
to the window just as the new-comers had alighted. 
A young cavalier sprang out of the carriage and 
handed out the Princess. The latter was a little 30 
shriveled old lady, with a face of parchment and 

1 3. Polonaise. Polish lady. 



74 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

sparkling black eye ; she was richly and gayly dressed, 
and walked with the assistance of a golden-headed 
cane as high as herself. The young man was tall and 
elegantly formed. The Count's daughter shrank back 
5 at the sight of him, though the deep frame of the win- 
dow screened her from observation. She gave a heavy 
sigh as she closed the casement. What that ^gh 
meant I cannot say. Perhaps it was at the contrast 
between the splendid equipage of the Princess, and 

10 the crazy, rheumatic-looking old vehicle of her father, 
which stood hard by. Whatever might be the reason, 
the young lady closed the casement with a sigh. She 
returned to her chair, — a slight shivering passed over 
her delicate frame: she leaned her elbow on the arm 

15 of the chair, rested her pale cheek in the palm of her 
hand, and looked mournfully into the fire. 

The Count thought she appeared paler than usual. 

" Does anything ail thee, my child ? " said he. 

" Nothing, dear father ! " replied she, laying her 

20 hand within his, and looking up smiling in his face; 
but as she said so, a treacherous tear rose suddenly to 
her eye, and she turned away her head. 

"The air of the window has chilled thee," said the 
Count, fondly, " but a good night's rest will make all 

25 well again." 

The supper-table was at length laid, and the supper 
about to be served when the hostess appeared, with 
her usual obsequiousness, apologizing for showing in 
the new-comers ; but the night air was cold, and there 

30 was no other chamber in the inn with a fire in it. She 
had scarcely made the apology when the Princess 
entered, leaning on the arm of the elegant young man, 



THE BELATED TRAVELERS 75 

The Count immediately recognized her for a lady 
whom he had met frequently in society, both at Rome 
and Naples ; and to whose conversaziones, in fact, he 
had been constantly invited. The cavalier, too, was 
her nephew and heir, who had been greatly admired in 5 
the gay circles, both for his merits and prospects, and 
who had once been on a visit at the same time with 
nis daughter and himself at the villa of a nobleman 
near Naples. Report had recently affianced him to a 
rich Spanish heiress. 10 

The meeting was agreeable to both the Count and 
the Princess. The former was a gentleman of the old 
school, courteous in the extreme ; the Princess had 
been a belle in her youth, and a woman of fashion all 
her life, and liked to be attended to. 15 

The young man approached the daughter, and began 
something of a complimentary observation; but his 
manner was embarrassed, and his compliment ended in 
an indistinct murmur; while the daughter bowed 
without looking up, moved her lips without articulat- 20 
ing a word, and sank again into her chair, where she 
sat gazing into the fire, with a thousand varying 
expressions passing over her countenance. 

This singular greeting of the young people was not 
perceived by the old ones, who were occupied at the 25 
time with their own courteous salutations. It was 
arranged that they should sup together ; and as the 
Princess traveled with her own cook, a very tolerable 
supper soon smoked upon the board. This, too, was 
assisted by choice wines, and liquors, and delicate 30 

3. Conversaziones. Conversational parties. 



76 TALES OF A TRAVELER 



1 



confitures brought from one of her carriages ; for she 
was a veteran epicure, and curious in her rehsh for the 
good things of this world. She was, in fact, a viva- 
cious little old lady, who mingled the woman of dis- 

5 sipation with the devotee. She was actually on her 
way to Loretto, to expiate a long life of gallantries 
and peccadilloes by a rich offering at the holy shrine. 
She was, to be sure, rather a luxurious penitent, and a 
contrast to the primitive pilgrims, with scrip and staflf, 

loand cockle-shell; but then it would be unreasonable 
to expect such self-denial from people of fashion ; and 
there was not a doubt of the ample efficacy of the rich 
crucifixes, and golden vessels, and jeweled ornaments, 
which she was bearing to the treasury of the blessed 

15 Virgin. 

The Princess and the Count chatted much during 
supper about the scenes and society in which they had 
mingled, and did not notice that they had all the con- 
versation to themselves : the young people were silent 

20 and constrained. The daughter ate nothing in spite of 
the politeness of the Princess, who continually pressed 
her to taste of one or other of the delicacies. The 
Count shook his head. 

" She is not well this evening," said he. "I thought 

25 she would have fainted just now as she was looking 
out of the window at your carriage on its arrival." 
A crimson glow flushed to the very temples of the 



1. Confitures. Sweetmeats ; cf. confits. 

6. Loretto. A celebrated shrine, much sought by pilgrims. It is situated 
in the province of Ancona. 

10. Cockle-shell. Mediaeval pilgrims carried a cockle-shell attached to 
the hat as a badge. As the chief place of pilgrimage was the Holy Land, 
where the shells are common, it served as a kind of credential. 



i 



THE BELATED TRAVELERS 77 

daughter ; but she leaned over her plate, and her tresses 
cast a shade over her countenance. 

When supper was over, they drew their chairs about 
the great fire-place. The flame and smoke had sub- 
sided, and a heap of glowing embers diffused a grate- 5 
ful warmth. A guitar, which had been brought from 
the Count's carriage, leaned against the wall; the 
Princess perceived it. — " Can we not have a little music 
before parting for the night?" demanded she. 

The Count was proud of his daughter's accomplish- to 
ment, and joined in the request. The young man made 
an effort of politeness, and taking up the guitar, pre- 
sented it, though in an embarrassed manner, to the fair 
musician. She would have declined it, but was too 
much confused to do so, indeed, she was so nervous 15 
and agitated, that she dared not trust her voice, to 
make an excuse. She touched the instrument with a 
faltering hand, and, after preluding a little, accom- 
panied herself in several Polish airs. Her father's eyes 
glistened as he sat gazing on her. Even the crusty 20 
Caspar lingered in the room, partly through a fond- 
ness for the music of his native country, but chiefly 
through his pride in the musician. Indeed the melody 
of the voice, and the delicacy of the touch, were enough 
to have charmed more fastidious ears. The little Prin- 25 
cess nodded her head and tapped her hand to the music, 
though exceedingly out of time ; while the nephew sat 
buried in profound contemplation of a black picture on 
the opposite wall. 

"And now," said the Count, patting her cheek fond- 30 
ly, " one more favor. Let the Princess hear that little 
Spanish air you were so fond of. You can't think," 



78 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

added he, "what a proficiency she has made in your 
language; though she has been a sad girl, and neglected 
it of late.'' 

The color flushed the pale cheek of the daughter. 

5 She hesitated, murmured something; but with sudden 
effort, collected herself, struck the guitar boldly, and 
began. It was a Spanish romance, with somthing of 
love and melancholy in it. She gave the first stanza 
with great expression, for the tremulous, melting tones 

10 of her voice went to the heart; but her articulation 
failed, her lips quivered, the song died away, and she 
burst into tears. 

The Count folded her tenderly in his arms. " Thou 
art not well, my child," said he, " and I am tasking 

15 thee cruelly. Retire to thy chamber, and God bless 
thee ! " She bowed to the company without raising 
her eyes, and glided out of the room. 

The Count shook his head as the door closed. " Some- 
thing is the matter with that child," said he, " which 

20 1 cannot divine. She has lost all health and spirits 
lately. She was always a tender flower, and I had 
much pains to rear her. Excuse a father's foolishness," 
continued he, "but I have seen much trouble in my 
family ; and this poor girl is all that is now left to me . 

25 and she used to be so lively " 

" Maybe she 's in love ! " said the little Princess, with 
a shrewd nod of the head. 

" Impossible ! " replied the good Count, artlessly. 
" She has never mentioned a word of such a thing to 

30 me." 

How little did the worthy gentleman dream of the 
thousand cares, and griefs, and mighty love concerns 




THE BEL A TED TRA VELERS 79 

which agitate a virgin heart, and which a timid girl 
scarcely breathes unto herself. 

Tlie nephew of the Princess rose abruptly and walked 
about the room. 

When she found herself alone in her chamber, the 5 
feelings of the young lady, so long restrained, broke 
forth with violence. She opened the casement that the 
cool air might blow upon her throbbing temples. Per- 
haps there was some little pride or pique mingled with 
her emotions ; though her gentle nature did not seem 10 
calculated to harbor any such angry inmate. 

"He saw me weep!" said she, with a sudden man- 
tling of the cheek, and a swelling of the throat, — " but 
no matter ! — no matter ! " 

And so saying, she threw her white arms across the 15 
wandow-frame, buried her face in them, and abandoned 
herself to an agony of tears. She remained lost in a 
reverie, until the sound of her father's and Caspar's 
voices in the adjoining room gave token that the party 
had retired for the night. The lights gleaming from 20 
window to window, showed that they were conducting 
the Princess to her apartments, which were in the op- 
posite wing of the inn; and she distinctly saw the 
figure of the nephew as he passed one of the case- 
ments. 25 

She heaved a deep heart-drawn sigh, and was about 
to close the lattice, when her attention was caught by 
words spoken below her window by two persons who 
had just turned an angle of the building. 

"But what will become of the poor young lady ?" 30 
said a voice, which she recognized for that of the serv- 
ant-woman. 



8o 



TALES OF A TRA VELER 



" Pooh ! she must take her chance," was the reply 
from old Pietro. 

" But cannot she be spared ? " asked the other, en- 
treatmgly ; " she's so kind-hearted ! " 
5 " Cospetto ! what has got into thee?" replied the 
other, petulantly : " would you mar the whole business 
for the sake of a silly girl ? " By this time they had 
got so far from the window that the Polonaise could 
hear nothing further. There was something in this 

10 fragment of conversation calculated to alarm. Did. it 
relate to herself? — and if so, what was this impending 
danger from which it was entreated that she might be 
spared ? She was several times on the point of tapping 
at her father's door, to tell him what she had heard, 

15 but she might have been mistaken; she might have 
heard indistinctly ; the conversation might have alluded 
to some one else ; at any rate, it was too indefinite to 
lead to any conclusion. While in this state of irreso- 
lution, she was startled by a low knock against the 

20 wainscot in a remote part of her gloomy chamber. 
On holding up tlie light, she beheld a small door there, 
which she had not l^efore remarked. It was bolted on 
the inside. She advanced, and demanded who knocked, 
and was answered in the voice of the female domestic. 

25 On opening the door, the woman stood before it pale 
and agitated. She entered softly, laying her finger on 
her lips in sign of caution and secrecy. 

" Fly ! " said she : " leave this house instantly, or you 
are lost ! " 

30 The young lady, trembling with alarm, demanded an 
explanation. 

5. Cospetto. An exclamation equivalent to " Bother it." 



THE BELATED TRAVELERS 8i 

" I have no time," replied the woman, " I dare not 
— I shall be missed if I linger here — but fly instantly, 
or you are lost." 

" And leave my father?" 

" Where is he ? " S 

" In the adjoining chamber." 

" Call him, then, but lose no time." 

The young lady knocked at her father's door. He 
was not yet retired to bed. She hurried into his room, 
and told him of the fearful warnings she had received. lo 
The Count returned with her into the chamber, fol- 
lowed by Caspar. His questions soon drew the truth 
out of the embarrassed answers of the woman. The 
inn was beset by robbers. They were to be introduced 
after midnight, when the attendants of the Princess 15 
and the rest of the travelers were sleeping, and would 
be an easy prey. 

" But we can barricade the inn, we can defend our- 
selves," said the Count. 

" What ! when the people of the inn are in league 20 
with the banditti?" 

" How then are we to escape ? Can we not order out 
the carriage and depart ? " 

" San Francesco ! for what ? to give the alarm that 
the plot is discovered ? That would make the robbers 25 
desperate, and bring them on you at once. They have 
had notice of the rich booty in the inn, and will not 
easily let it escape them." 

" But how else are we to get off?" 

" There is a horse behind the inn," said the woman, 30 
" from which the man has just dismounted who has been 
to summon the aid of part of the band at a distance." 
6 



82 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

" One horse ; and there are three of us ! " said the 
Count. 

" And the Spanish Princess ! " cried the daughter, 
anxiously. " How can she be extricated from the 
5 danger?" 

" Diavolo ! what is she to me ? " said the woman, in 
sudden passion. '' It is you I come to save, and you 
will betray me, and we shall all be lost ! Hark ! " con- 
tinued she, " I am called — I shall be discovered — one 

loword more. This door leads by a staircase to the 
courtyard. Under the shed, in the rear of the yard, 
is a small door leading out to the fields. You will find 
a horse there; mount it; make a circuit under the 
shadow of a ridge of rocks that you will see ; proceed 

15 cautiously and quietly until you cross a brook, and find 
yourself on the road just where there are three white 
crosses nailed against a tree ; then put your horse to 
his speed, and make the best of your way to the village 
— but recollect, my life is in your hands — say nothing 

20 of what you have heard or seen, whatever may happen 
at this inn." 

The woman hurried away. A short and agitated 
consultation took place between the Count, his daugh- 
ter, and the veteran Caspar. The young lady seemed 

25 to have lost all apprehension for herself in her solici- 
tude for the safety of the Princess. " To fly in selfish 
silence, and leave her to be massacred!" — A shud- 
dering seized her at the very thought. The gallantry 
of the Count, too, revolted at the idea. He could not 

30 consent to turn his back upon a party of helpless trav- 

6. Diavolo I The Devil ! 



THE BEL A TED TRA VELERS Zt^ 

elers, and leave them in ignorance of the danger which 
hung over them. 

" But what is to become of the young lady," said 
Caspar, " if the alarm is given, and the inn thrown in 
a tumult ? What may happen to her in a chance- 5 
medley affray ? " 

Here the feelings of the father were aroused ; he 
looked upon his lovely, helpless child, and trembled 
at the chance of her falling into the hands of ruf- 
fians. 10 

The daughter, however, thought nothing of herself. 
" The Princess ! the Princess ! — only let the Princess 
know her danger." She was willing to share it with 
her. 

At length Caspar interfered with the zeal of a faithful 15 
old servant. No time was to be lost — the first thing 
was to get the young lady out of danger. " Mount the 
horse," said he to the Count, " take her behind you, 
and fly! Make for the village, rouse the inhabitants, 
and send assistance. Leave me here to give the alarm 20 
to the Princess and her people. I am an old soldier, 
and I think we shall be able to stand siege until you 
send us aid." 

The daughter would again have insisted on staying 
with the Princess — 25 

" For what ? " said old Caspar, bluntly. " You could 
do no good — you would be in the way ; — we should 
have to take care of you instead of ourselves." 

There was no answering these objections ; the Count 
seized his pistols, and taking his daughter under hiss^ 
arm, moved towards the staircase. The young lady 
paused, stepped back, and said, faltering with agitation 



84 TALES OF A TRA VELER 



1 



— " There is a young cavalier with the Princess — her 

nephew — perhaps he may " 

" I understand you, Mademoiselle," replied old 
Caspar, with a significant nod ; " not a hair of his head 
5 shall suffer harm if I can help it." 

The young lady blushed deeper than ever ; she had 
not anticipated being so thoroughly understood by the 
blunt old servant. 

"That is not what I mean," said she, hesitating. 

10 She would have added something, or made some ex- 
planation, but the moments were precious and her 
father hurried her away. 

They found their way through the courtyard to the 
small postern gate where the horse stood, fastened 

15 to a ring in the wall. The Count mounted, took his 
daughter behind him, and they proceeded as quietly 
as possible in the direction which the woman had 
pointed out. Many a fearful and anxious look did the 
daughter cast back upon the gloomy pile ; the lights 

20 which had feebly twinkled through the dusky case- 
ments were one by one disappearing, a sign that the 
inmates were gradually sinking to repose; and she 
trembled with impatience, lest succor should not arrive 
until that repose had been fatally interrupted. 

25 They passed silently and safely along the skirts of the 
rocks, protected from observation by their overhanging 
shadows. They crossed the brook, and reached the place 
where three white crosses nailed against a tree told of 
some murder that had been committed there. Just as 

30 they had reached this ill-omened spot they beheld sev- 
eral men in the gloom poming down a craggy defile 
among the rocks. 



THE BEL A TED TRA VELERS 8$; 

<' Who goes there ? " exclaimed a voice. The Count 
put spurs to his horse, but one of the men sprang for- 
ward and seized the bridle. The horse started back, 
and reared; and had not the young lady clung to her 
father, she would have been thrown off. The Count 5; 
leaned forward, put a pistol to the very head of the 
ruffian, and fired. The latter fell dead. The horse 
sprang forward. Two or three shots were fired which 
whistled by the fugitives, but only served to augment 
their speed. They reached the village in safety. la 

The whole place was soon roused ; but such was the 
awe in which the banditti were held, that the inhabit- 
ants shrunk at the idea of encountering them. A des- 
perate band had for some time infested that pass 
through the mountains, and the inn had long been sus- 15, 
pected of being one of those horrible places where the 
unsuspicious wayfarer is entrapped and silently dis- 
posed of. The rich ornaments worn by the slattern 
hostess of the inn had excited heavy suspicions. Sev- 
eral instances had occurred of small parties of travelers 20 
disappearing mysteriously on that road, who, it was 
supposed at first, had been carried ofi: by the robbers 
for the purpose of ransom, but who had never been 
heard of more. Such were the tales buzzed in the 
ears of the Count by the villagers, as he endeavored to 25 
rouse them to the rescue of the Princess and her train 
from their perilous situation. The daughter seconded 
the exertions of her father with all the eloquence of 
prayers, and tears, and beauty. Every moment that 
elapsed increased her anxiety until it became agonizing. 30 
Fortunately there was a body of gendarmes resting at 
the village. A uumber of the young villagers volun- 



S6 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

teered to accompany them, and the little army was put 
in motion. The Count having deposited his daughter 
in a place of safety, was too much of the old soldier not 
to hasten to the scene of danger. It would be difficult 
5 to print the anxious agitation of the young lady while 
awaiting the result. 

The party arrived at the inn just in time. The 
robbers, finding their plans discovered, and the trav- 
elers prepared for their reception, had become open 

TO and furious in their attack. The Princess's party had 
barricaded themselves in one suite of apartments, and 
repulsed the robbers from the doors and windows. 
Caspar had shown the generalship of a veteran, and 
the nephew of the Princess the dashing valor of a 

15 young soldier. Their ammunition, however, was 
nearly exhausted, and they would have found it diffi- 
cult to hold out much longer, when a discharge from 
the musketry of the gendarmes gave them the joyful 
tidings of succor. 

20 A fierce fight ensued, for part of the robbers were 
surprised in the inn, and had to stand siege in their 
turn ; while their comrades made desperate attempts 
to relieve them from under cover of the neighboring 
rocks and thickets. 

25 I cannot pretend to give a minute account of the 
fight, as I have heard it related in a variety of ways. 
Suffice it to say, the robbers were defeated ; several of 
them killed, and several taken prisoners ; which last, 
together with the people of the inn, were either exe- 

3ocuted or sent to the galleys. 

I picked up these particulars in the course of a journey 
which I made some time after the event had taken 



THE BELATED TRAVELERS 87 

place. I passed by the very inn. It was then dis- 
mantled, excepting one wing, in which a body of 
gendarmes was stationed. They pointed out to me the 
shot-holes in the window-frames, the walls, and the 
panels of the doors. There were a number of withered 5 
limbs dangling from the branches of a neighboring 
tree, and blackening in the air, which I was told were 
the limbs of the robbers who had been slain, and the 
culprits who had been executed. The whole place had 
a dismal, wild, forlorn look." 10 

''Were any of the Princess's party killed?" in- 
quired the Englishman. 

" As far as I can recollect, there were two or three." 

"Not the nephew, I trust?" said the fair Venetian. 

"Oh no : he hastened with the Count to relieve the 15 
anxiety of the daughter by the assurances of victory. 
The young lady had been sustained through the 
interval of suspense by the very intensity of her feel- 
ings. The moment she saw her father returning in 
safety, accompanied by the nephew of the Princess, she 20 
uttered a cry of rapture, and fainted. Happily, how- 
ever, she soon recovered, and what is more, was 
married shortly afterwards to the young cavalier ; and 
the whole party accompanied the old Princess in her 
pilgrimage to Loretto, where her votive offerings may 25 
still be seen in the treasury of the Santa Casa." 

26. Santa Casa. Holy House. The Santa Casa is the reputed house of 
the Virgin Mary at Nazareth. It was miraculously translated to Fiume, in 
Dalmatia, in 1291, thence to Recanati in 1294, and finally to Loretto. 



88 TALES OF A TRA VELER 



The Adventure of the 
Englishman 

\^ the morning all was bustle in the hin at Terra- 
cina. The procaccio had departed at daybreak on his 
route towards Rome, but the Englishman was yet to 
start, and the departure of an English equipage is 

5 always enough to keep an inn in a bustle. On this 
occasion there was more than usual stir, for the Eng- 
lishman having much property about him, and having 
been convinced of the real danger of the road, had ap- 
plied to the police and obtained, by dint of liberal pay, 

10 an escort of eight dragoons and twelve foot-soldiers, as 
far as Fondio 

Perhaps, too, there might huve been a little ostenta- 
tion at bottom, though, to say the truth, he had noth- 
ing of it in his manner. He moved about, taciturn 

15 and reserved as usual, among the gaping crowd, gave 
laconic orders to John, as he packed away the thou- 
sand and one indispensable conveniences of the night; 
double loaded his pistols with great sang froid, and 
deposited them in the pockets of the carriage ; taking 

20 no notice of a pair of keen eyes gazing on him from 
among the herd of loitering idlers. 

18. Sangfroid. Coolness. 



THE ADVENTURE OE THE ENGLISHMAN, 89 

The fair Venetian now came up with a request, 
made in her dulcet tones, that he would permit their 
carriage to proceed under protection of his escort. 
The Englishman, who was busy loading another pair 
of pistols for his servant, and held the ramrod be- s 
tween his teeth, nodded assent, as a matter of course, 
but without lifting up his eyes. The fair Venetian 
was a little piqued at what she supposed indifference :— 
"O Dio!" ejaculated she softly as she retired; 
" Quanto sono insensibili questi Inglesi." 10 

At length, off they set in gallant style. The eight 
dragoons prancing in front, the twelve foot-soldiers 
marching in rear, and the carriage moving slowly in 
the center, to enable the infantry to keep pace with 
them. They had proceeded but a few hundred yards, 15 
when it was discovered that some indispensable ar- 
ticle had been left behind. In fact, the Englishman's 
purse was missing, and John was dispatched to the 
inn to search for it. This occasioned a little delay, 
and the carriage of the Venetians drove slowly on. 20 
John came back out of breath and out of humor. The 
purse was not to be found. His master was irritated; 
he recollected the very place where it lay ; he had not 
a doubt the Italian servant had pocketed it. John 
was again sent back. He returned once more without 25 
the purse, but with the landlord and the whole house- 
hold at his heels. A thousand ejaculations and pro- 
testations, accompanied by all sorts of grimaces and 
contortions — " No purse had been seen — his excellenza 
must be mistaken." 30 

9. O Dio etc. Heavens ! how cold these English are. 



90 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

"No — his excellenza was not mistaken — the purse 

lay on the marble table, under the mirror, a green 

purse, half full of gold and silver." Again a thousand 

grimaces and contortions, and vows by San Gennaro, 

5 that no purse of the kind had been seen. 

The Englishman became furious. " The waiter had 
pocketed it — the landlord was a knave — the inn a den 
of thieves — it was a vile country — he had been cheated 
and plundered from one end of it to the other — but 

10 he'd have satisfaction — he'd drive light off to the 
police. 

He was on the point of ordering the postilions to 
turn back, when, on rising, he displaced the cushion of 
the carriage, and the purse of money fell chinking to 

15 the floor. 

All the blood in his body seemed to rush into his 
face. — " Curse the purse," said he, as he snatched it 
up. He dashed a handful of money on the ground 
before the pale cringing waiter, — " There, be off ! " 

20 cried he. "John, order the postilions to drive on." 
About half an hour had been exhausted in this alter- 
cation. The Venetian carriage had loitered along ; its 
passengers looking out from time to time, and expect- 
ing the escort every moment to follow. They had 

25 gradually turned an angle of the road that shut them 
out of sight. The little army was again in motion, 
and made a very picturesque appearance as it wound 
along at the bottom of the rocks ; the morning sun- 
shine beaming upon the weapons of the soldiery. 

30 The Englishman lolled back in his carriage, vexed 
with himself at what had passed, and consequently out 
of humor with all the world. As this, however, is no 




THE ADVENTURE OP THE ENGLISHMAN 



91 



uncommon case with gentlemen who travel for their 
pleasure, it is hardly worthy of remark. They had 
wound up from the coast among the hills, and came to 
a part of the road that admitted of some prospect ahead. 

^* I see nothing of the lady's carriage, sir," said John 5 
leaning down from the coach-box. 

" Pish ! " said the Englishman, testily ; " don't plague 
me about the lady's carriage ; must I be continually 
pestered with the concerns of strangers ? " John said 
not another word, for he understood his master's mood. 10 

The road grew more w^ild and lonely ; they were 
slowly proceeding on a foot-pace up a hill ; the dra- 
goons were some distance ahead, and had just reached 
the summit of the hill, when they uttered an exclama- 
tion, or rather shout, and galloped forward. The Eng- 15 
lishman was roused from his sulky reverie. He 
stretched his head from the carriage, which had at- 
tained the brow of the hill. Before him extended a 
long hollow defile, commanded on one side by rugged 
precipitous heights, covered with bushes of scanty 20 
forest. At some distance he beheld the carriage of the 
Venetians overturned. A numerous gang of desper- 
adoes were rifling it; the young man and his servant 
were overpowered, and partly stripped ; and the lady 
was in the hands of two of the rufiians. The English- 23 
man seized his pistols, sprang from the carriage, and 
called upon John to follow him. 

In the mean time, as the dragoons came forward, the 
robbers, who were busy with the carriage, quitted 
their spoil, formed themselves in the middle of the 30 
road, and taking a deliberate aim, fired. One of the 
dragoons fell, another was wounded, and the whole 



95 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

were for a moment checked and thrown into confusion. 
The robbers loaded again in an instant. The dragoons 
discharged their carbines, but without apparent effect. 
They received another volley, which, though none fell, 
5 threw them again into confusion. The robbers were 
loading a second time when they saw the foot-soldiers 
at hand. '^ Scanipa via f'* was the word: they aban- 
doned their prey, and retreated up the rocks, the sol- 
diers after them. They fought from cliff to cliff", and 

10 bush to bush, the robbers turning every now and then 
to fire upon their pursuers; the soldiers scrambling 
after them, and discharging their muskets whenever 
they could get a chance. Sometimes a soldier or a 
robber was shot down, and came tumbling among the 

15 cliff's. The dragoons kept firing from below, whenever 
a robber came in sight. 

The Englishman had hastened to the scene of action^ 
;and the balls discharged at the dragoons had whistled 
past him as he advanced. One object, however, en- 

20 grossed his attention. It was the beautiful Venetian 
lady in the hands of two of the robbers, who, during 
the confusion of the fight, carried her shrieking up the 
mountain. He saw her dress gleaming among the 
bushes, and he sprang up the rocks to intercept the 

25 robbers, as they bore off their prey. The ruggedness 
of the steep, and the entanglements of the bushes, de- 
layed and impeded him. He lost sight of the lady, but 
was still guided by her cries, which grew fainter and 
fainter. They were off to the left, while the reports of 

30 muskets showed that the battle was raging to the right. 

7. Scampa via ! Run quickly 1 



THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGLISHMAN 93 

At length he came upon what appeared to be a rugged 
footpath, faintly worn in a gulley of the rocks, and be- 
held the ruffians at some distance hurrying the lady 
up the defile. One of them hearing his approach, let 
go his prey, advanced towards him, and leveling the 5 
carbine which had been slung on his back, fired. The 
ball whizzed through the Englishman's hat, and car- 
ried with it some of his hair. He returned the fire with 
one of his pistols, and the robber fell. The other brig- 
and now dropped the lady, and drawing a long pistol 10 
from his belt, fired on his adversary with deliberate 
aim. The ball passed between his left arm and his 
side, slightly wounding the arm. The Englishman 
advanced, and discharged his remaining pistol, which 
wounded the robber, but not severely. ^S 

The brigand drew a stiletto and rushed upon his 
adversary, who eluded the blow, receiving merely a 
slight wound, and defended himself with his pistol,, 
which had a spring bayonet. They closed with one 
another, and a desperate struggle ensued. The robber '^^ 
was a square-built, thick-set man, powerful, muscular, 
and active. The Englishman, though of larger frame 
and greater strength, was less active, and less accus- 
tomed to athletic exercises and feats of hardihood, but 
he showed himself practised and skilled in the art of 25; 
defense. They were on a craggy height, and the Eng- 
lishman perceived that his antagonist was striving to 
press him to the edge. A side-glance showed him also 
the robber whom he had first wounded, scrambling up 
to the assistance of his comrade, stiletto in hand. He 30* 
had in fact attained the summit of the cliff, he was 
within a few steps, and the Englishman felt that his 



94 TALES OF A TRA VELER 



^! 



case was desperate, when he heard suddenly the report 
of a pistol, and the ruffian fell. The shot came from 
John, who had arrived just in time to save his master. 
The remaining robber, exhausted by loss of blood 
5 and the violence of the contest, showed signs of fal- 
tering. The Englishman pursued his advantage, 
pressed on him, and as his strength relaxed, dashed him 
headlong from the precipice. He looked after him, 
and saw him lying motionless among the rocks below. 

10 The Englishman now sought the fair Venetian. He 
found her senseless on the ground. With his servant's 
assistance he bore her down to the road, where her 
husband was raving like one distracted. He had sought 
her in vain, and had given her over for lost ; and when 

15 he beheld her thus brought back in safety, his joy was 
equally wild and ungovernable. He would have caught 
her insensible form to his bosom had not the English- 
man restrained him. The latter, now really aroused, 
displayed a true tenderness and manly gallantry, which 

20 one would not have expected from his habitual phlegm. 
His kindness, however, was practical, not wasted 
in words. He dispatched John to the carriage for 
restoratives of all kinds, and, totally thoughtless of 
himself, was anxious only about his lovely charge. 

25 The occasional discharge of firearms along the height, 
showed that a retreating fight was still kept up by the 
robbers. The lady gave signs of reviving animation. 
The Englishman, eager to get her from this place of 
danger, conveyed her to his own carriage, and, com- 

30 mitting her to the care of her husband, ordered the 
dragoons to escort them to Fondi. The Venetian would 
have insisted on the Englishman's getting into the car- 



THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGLISHMAN 



95 



riage ; but the latter refused. He poured forth a torrent 
of thanks and benedictions ; but the Englishman beck- 
oned to the postilions to drive on. 

John now dressed his master's wounds, which were 
found not to be serious, though he was faint with loss 
of blood. The Venetian carriage had been righted, 
and the baggage replaced ; and, getting into it, they 
set out on their way towards Fondi, leaving the foot- 
soldiers still engaged in ferreting out the banditti. 

Before arriving at Fondi, the fair Venetian had com- lo 
pletely recovered from her swoon. She made the usual 
question, — 

'' Where was she ? " 

"In the Englishman's carriage." 

" How had she escaped from the robbers?" 15 

"The Englishman had rescued her." 

Her transports were unbounded; and mingled with 
them were enthusiastic ejaculations of gratitude to her 
deliverer. A thousand times did she reproach herself 
for having accused him of coldness and insensibility. 20 
The moment she saw him, she rushed into his arms 
with the vivacity of her nation, and hung about his neck 
in a speechless transport of gratitude. Never was man 
more embarrassed by the embraces of a fine woman. 

" Tut !— tut ! " said the Englishman. 25 

"You are wounded!" shrieked the fair Venetian as 
she saw blood upon his clothes. 

" Pooh ! nothing at all ! " 

" My deliverer ! — my angel ! " exclaimed she, clasp- 
ing him again round the neck, and sobbing on his 30 
bosom. 

" Pish ! " said the Englishman, with a good-humored 



96 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

tone, but looking somewhat foolish, " this is all hum- 
bug." 

The fair Venetian, however, has never since accused 
the English of insensibility. 



Kidd the Pirate 

5 In old times, just after the territory of the New 
Netherlands had been wrested from the hands of their 
High Mightinesses, the Lords States-General of Hol- 
land, by King Charles the Second, and while it was as 
yet in an unquiet state, the province was a great re- 

10 sort of random adventurers, loose livers, and all that 
class of hap-hazard fellows who live by their wits, and 
dislike the old-fashioned restraint of law and gospel. 
Among these, the foremost were the buccaneers. 
These were rovers of the deep, who perhaps in time of 

15 war had been educated in those schools of piracy, the 
privateers ; but having once tasted the sweets of 
plunder, had ever retained a hankering after it. There 
is but a slight step from the privateersman to the 
pirate; both fight for the love of plunder; only that 

20 the latter is the bravest, as he dares both the enemy 
and the gallows. 

But in whatever school they had been taught, the 
buccaneers that kept about the English colonies were 
daring fellows, and made sad work in times of peace 

5. New Netherlands. The Duke of York, a brother of the English King, 
had this territory granted to him in 1664 and at once took quietly posses- 
sion of it, changing its name to New York. 



KIDD THE PIRA TE 97 

among the Spanish settlements and Spanish merchant- 
men. The easy access to the harbor of the Manhat- 
toes, the number of hiding-places about its waters, 
and the laxity of its scarcely-organized government, 
made it a great rendezvous of the pirates ; where they s 
might dispose of their booty, and concert new depre- 
dations. As they brought home with them wealthy 
lading of all kinds, the luxuries of the tropics, and the 
sumptuous spoils of the Spanish provinces, and dis- 
posed of them with the proverbial carelessness of free- 10 
hooters, they were welcome visitors to the thrifty 
traders of the Manhattoes. Crews of these desperadoes, 
therefore, the runagates of every country and every 
clime, might be seen swaggering in open day about 
the streets of the little burgh, elbowing its quiet myn- 15 
heers ; trafficking away their rich outlandish plunder 
at half or quarter price to the wary merchant; and 
then squandering their prize-money in taverns, drink- 
ing, gambling, singing, swearing, shouting and as- 
tounding the neighborhood with midnight brawl and 20 
ruffian revelry. 

At length these excesses rose to such a height as to 
become a scandal to the provinces, and to call loudly 
for the interposition of government. Measures were 
accordingly taken to put a stop to the widely-ex- 25 
tended evil, and to ferret this vermin brood out of the 
colonies. 

Among the agents employed to execute this purpose 
was the notorious Captain Kidd. He had long been 

2. Manhattoes. When the Dutch settled at the present site of New 
York, they adopted the Indian name and called it Manhattan and its former 
inhabitants the Manhattoes. 

15. Mynheers. Dutch for " sirs." 

7 



98 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

ail equivocal character; one of those nondescript ani- 
mals of the ocean that are neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. 
He was somewhat of a trader, something more of a 
smuggler, with a considerable dash of the picaroon. 
5 He had traded for many years among the pirates, in a 
little rakish, mosquito-built vessel, that could run into 
all kinds of waters. He knew all their haunts and 
lurking-places; was always hooking about on myster- 
ious voyages, and was as busy as a Mother Gary's 

10 chicken in a storm. 

This nondescript personage was pitched upon by 
government as the very man to hunt the pirates by 
sea, upon the good old maxim of "setting a rogue to 
catch a rogue;" or as otters are sometimes used to 

IS catch their cousins-german, the fish. 

Kidd accordingly sailed for New York, in 1695, in a 
gallant vessel called the Adventure Galley^ well armed 
and duly commissioned. On arriving at his old 
haunts, however, he shipped his crew on new terms ; 

20 enlisted a number of his old comrades, lads of the 
knife and the pistol ; and then set sail for the East. 
Instead o! cruising against pirates, he turned pirate 
himself; steered to the Madeiras, to Bonavista, and 
Madagascar, and cruised about the entrance of the Red 

25 Sea. Here, among other maritime robberies, he cap- 
tured a rich Quedah merchantman, manned by Moors, 
though commanded by an Englishman. Kidd would 
fain have passed this otf for a worthy exploit, as being 
a kind of crusade against the infidels; but govern- 

30 ment had long since lost all relish for such Christian 
triumphs. 
After roaming the seas, trafficking his prizes, and 



KIDD THE PIRATE 



99 



changing from ship to ship, Kidd had the hardihood to 
return to Boston, laden with booty, with a crew of 
swaggering companions at his heels. 

Times, however, were changed. The buccaneers 
could no longer show a whisker in the colonies with 5 
impunity. The new governor, Lord Bellamont, had 
signalized himself by his zeal in extirpating these of- 
fenders; and was doubly exasperated against Kidd- 
having been instrumental in appointing him to the 
trust which he had betrayed. No sooner, therefore, 10 
did he show himself in Boston, than the alarm was 
given of liis reappearance, and measures were taken to 
arrest this cutpurse of the ocean. The daring character 
which Kidd had acquired, however, and the desperate 
fellows who followed like bull-dogs at his heels, caused 15 
a little delay in his arrest. He took advantage of this, 
it is said, to bury the greater part of his treasures and 
then carried a high head about the streets of Boston. 
He even attempted to defend himself when arrested, 
but was secured and thrown into prison, with his fol- 20 
lowers. Such was the formidable character of this 
pirate and his crew, that it was thought advisable to 
dispatch a frigate to bring them to England. Great 
exertions were made to screen him from justice, but in 
vain ; he and his comrades were tried, condemned, and 25 
hanged at Execution Dock in London. Kidd died 
hard, for the rope with which he was first tied up 
broke with his weight, and he tumbled to the ground. 
He was tied up a second time, and more effectually ; 
hence came, doubtless, the story of Kidd's having a IP 
charmed life, and that he had to be twice hanged. 

Such is the inain outline of Kidd's history ; but \% 



100 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

has given birth to an innumerable progeny of tradi- 
tions. The report of his having buried great treasures 
of gold and jewels before his arrest, set the brains of 
all the good people along the coast in a ferment. 
5 There were rumors on rumors of great sums of money 
found here and there, sometimes in one part of the 
country, sometimes in another ; of coins with Moorish 
inscriptions, doubtless the spoils of his eastern prizes, 
but which the common people looked upon with super- 

lostitious awe, regarding the Moorish letters as diabolical 
or magical characters. 

Some reported the treasure to have been buried in 
solitary, unsettled places, about Plymouth and Cape 
Cod; but by degrees various other parts, not only on 

15 the eastern coast, but along the shores of the Sound, 
and even of Manhattan and Long Island, w^ere gilded 
by these rumors. In fact, the rigorous measures of 
Lord Bellamont spread sudden consternation among 
the buccaneers in every part of the provinces : they 

20 secreted their money and jewels in lonely, out-of-the- 
way places, about the wild shores of the rivers and sea- 
coast, and dispersed themselves over the face of the 
country. The hand of justice prevented many of them 
from ever returning to regain their buried treasures, 

25 which remained, and remain probably to this day, ob- 
jects of enterprise for the money-digger. 

This is the cause of those frequent reports of trees 
and rocks bearing mysterious marks, supposed to in- 
dicate the spots where treasure lay hidden ; and many 

30 have been the ransackings after the pirate's booty. In 
all the stories which once abounded of these enter- 
prises, the devil played a conspicuous part, Either he 



KIDD THE PIRATE lOl 

was conciliated by ceremonies and invocations, or 
some solemn compact was made with him. Still he 
was ever prone to play the money-diggers some 
slippery trick. Some would dig so far as to come to 
an iron chest, when some baffling circumstance was s 
sure to take place. Either the earth would fall in and 
fill up the pit, or some direful noise or apparition 
would frighten the party from the place : sometimes 
the devil himself would appear, and bear off the prize 
when within their very grasp ; and if they revisited lo 
the place the next day, not a trace would be found of 
their labors of the preceding night. 

All these rumors, however, were extremely vague, 
and for a long time tantalized, without gratifying, my 
curiosity. There is nothing in this world so hard to 15 
get at as truth, and there is nothing in this world but 
truth that I care for. I sought among all my favorite 
sources of authentic information, the oldest inhabi- 
tants, and particularly the old Dutch wives of the prov- 
ince ; but though I flatter myself that I am better 20 
versed than most men in the curious history of my 
native province, yet for a long time my inquiries were 
unattended with any substantial result. 

At length it happened that, one calm day in the latter 
part of summer, I was relaxing myself from the toils 25 
of severe study, by a day's amusement in fishing in 
those waters which had been the favorite resort of my 
boyhood. I was in company with several worthy 
burghers of my native city, among whom were more 
than one illustrious member of the corporation, whose 30 
names, did I dare to mention them, would do honor to 
my humble page, Our sport was indifferent. The fish 



102 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

did not bite freely, and we frequently changed our 
fishing-ground without bettering our luck. We were 
at length anchored close under a ledge of rocky coast, 
on the eastern side of the island of Manhatta. It was 
5 a still, warm day. The stream whirled and dimpled 
by us, without a wave or even a ripple ; and every- 
thing was so calm and quiet, that it was almost startling 
when the kingfisher would pitch himself from the 
branch of some high tree, and after suspending himself 

10 for a moment in the air, to take his aim, would souse 
into the smooth water after his prey. While we were 
lolling in our boat, half drowsy with the warm stillness 
of the day and the dulness of our sport, one of our 
party, a worthy alderman, was overtaken by a slumber, 

15 and, as he dozed, suffered the sinker of his drop-line to 
lie upon the bottom of the river. On waking, he found 
he had caught something of importance from the 
weight. On drawing it to the surface, we were much 
surprised to find it a long pistol of very curious and 

20 outlandish fashion, which, from its rusted condition, 
and its stock being wormeaten and covered with bar- 
nacles, appeared to have lain a long time under water. 
The unexpected appearance of this document of warfare, 
occasioned much speculation among my pacific com- 

25panions. One supposed it to have fallen there during 
the Revolutionary War ; another, from the peculiarity 
of its fashion, attributed it to the voyagers in the 
earliest days of the settlement ; perchance to the re- 
nowned Adrian Block, who explored the Sound, and 

30 discovered Block Island, since so noted for its cheese. 
But a third, after regarding it for some time, pro- 
nounced it to be of veritable Spanish workmanship. 



KIDD THE PIRA TE 



103 



" ril warrant,^' said he, "if this pistol could talk, it 
would tell strange stories of hard fights among the 
Spanish Dons. I've no doubt but it is a relic of the 
buccaneers of old times — who knows but it belonged 
to Kidd himself?" 5 

" Ah ! that Kidd was a resolute fellow," cried an old 
iron-faced Cape Cod whaler. — *' There's a fine old song 
about him, all to the tune of — 

My name is Captain Kidd 
As I sailed, as I sailed — 10 

And then it tells about how he gained the devil's good 
graces by burying the Bible : 

I had the Bible in my hand, 

As I sailed, as I sailed. 
And I buried it in the sand, iq 

As I sailed. — 

" Odsfish if I thought this pistol had belonged to 
Kidd, I should set great store by it, for curiosity's sake. 
By the way, I recollect a story about a fellow who once 
dug up Kidd's buried money, which was written by a 20 
neighbor of mine, and which I learnt by heart. As 
the fish don't bite just now, I'll tell it to you, by way 
of passing away the time." — And so saying, he gave us 
the followinoc narration. 



104 TALES OF A TRAVELER 



The Devil and Tom Walker 

A FEW miles from Boston in Massachusetts, there is 
a deep inlet, winding several miles into the interior of 
the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a 
thickly- wooded swamp or morass. On one side of this 
S inlet is a beautiful dark grove ; on the opposite side 
the land rises abruptly from the water's edge into a 
high ridge, on which grow a few scattered oaks of great 
age and immense size. Under one of these gigantic 
trees, according to old stories, there was a great amount 

10 of treasure buried by Kidd the pirate. The inlet al- 
lowed a facility to bring the money in a boat secretly 
and at night to the very foot of the hill ; the elevation 
of the place permitted a good look-out to be kept that 
no one was at hand ; while the remarkable trees formed 

15 good landmarks by which the place might easily be 
found again. The old stories add, moreover, that the 
devil presided at the hiding of the money, and took it 
under his guardianship ; but this, it is well known, he 
always does with buried treasure, particularly when it 

20 has been ill-gotten. Be that as it may, Kidd never 
returned to recover his wealth ; being shortly after 
seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there hanged 
for a pirate. 

About the year 1727, just at the time that earth- 

25 quakes were prevalent in New England, and shook 
many tall sinners down upon their knees, there lived 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 105 

near this place a meagre, miserly fellow, of the name 
of Tom Walker. He had a wife as miserly as himself : 
they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat 
each other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on, 
she hid away ; a hen could not cackle but she was on ^ 
the alert to secure the new-laid ^gg. Her husband 
was continually prying about to detect her secret 
hoards, and many and fierce were the conflicts that 
took place about what ought to have been common 
property. They lived in a forlorn-looking house that ^o 
stood alone, and had an air of starvation. A few strag- 
gling savin trees, emblems of sterility, grew near it; 
no smoke ever curled from its chimney ; no travelers 
stopped at its door. A miserable horse, whose ribs 
were as articulate as the bars of a gridiron, stalked ^5 
about a field, where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely 
covering the ragged beds of puddingstone, tantalized 
and balked his hunger; and sometimes he would lean 
his head over the fence, look piteously at the passer- 
by, and seem to petition deliverance from this land of ^o 
famine. 

The house and its inmates had altogether a bad 
name. Tom's wife was a tall termagant, fierce of 
temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice 
was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband; 25 
and his face sometimes showed signs that their con- 
flicts were not confined to words. No one ventured, 
however, to interfere between them. The lonely way- 
farer shrunk within himself at the horrid clamor and 
clapper-clawing ; eyed the den of discord askance ; and 30 
hurried on his way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his 
celibacy. 



Io6 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant 
part of the neighborhood, he took what he considered 
a sliort cut homeward, through the swamp. Like most 
short cuts, it was an ill-chosen route. The swamp 
5 was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hem- 
locks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it 
dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the 
neighborhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly 
covered with weeds and mosses, where the green sur- 

loface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, 
smothering mud : there were also dark and stagnant 
pools, the abode of the tadpole, the bull-frog, and the 
water-snake ; where the trunks of pines and hemlocks 
lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators 

IS sleeping in the mire. 

Tom had long been picking his way cautiously 
through this treacherous forest ; stepping from tuft to 
tuft of rushes and roots, which afforded precarious 
footholds among deep sloughs ; or pacing carefully, 

20 like a cat, along the prostrate trunks of trees ; startled 
now and then by the sudden screaming of the bittern, 
or the quacking of a wild duck rising on the wing 
from some solitary pool. At length he arrived at a 
piece of firm ground, which ran out like a peninsula 

25 into the deep bosom of the swamp. It had been one 
of the strongholds of the Indians during their wars 
with the first colonists. Here they had thrown up a 
kind of fort, which they had looked upon as almost 
impregnable, and had used as a place of refuge for 

30 their squaws and children. Nothing remained of the 
old Indian fort but a few embankments, gradually 
sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 107 

already overgrown in part by oaks and other forest 
trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast to the dark 
pines and hemlocks of the swamp. 

It was late in the dusk of evening when Tom Walker 
reached the old fort, and he paused there awhile to rest 5 
himself. Any one but he would have felt unwilling to 
linger in this lonely, melancholy place, for the common 
people had a bad opinion of it, from the stories handed 
down from the time of the Indian wars ; when it was 
asserted that the savages held incantations here, and ^^ 
made sacrifices to the evil spirit. 

Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be troubled 
with any fears of the kind. He reposed himself for 
some time on the trunk of a fallen hemlock, listening 
to the boding cry of the tree-toad, and delving with^S 
his walking-staff into a mound of black mould at his 
feet. As he turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff 
struck against something hard. He raked it out of the 
vegetable mould, and lo ! a cloven skull, with an Indian 
tomahawk buried deep in it, lay before him. The rust 20 
on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since 
this death-blow had been given. It was a dreary 
memento of the fierce struggle that had taken place in 
this last foothold of the Indian warriors. 

" Humph ! " said Tom Walker, as he gave it a kick 25 
to shake the dirt from it. 

" Let that skull alone ! " said a gruff voice. Tom 
lifted up his eyes, and beheld a great black man seated 
directly opposite him, on the stump of a tree. He was 
exceedingly surprised, having neither heard nor seen 30 
any one approach ; and he was still more perplexed on 
observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, 



io8 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

that the stranger was neither negro nor Indian. It is 
true he was dressed in a rude half Indian garb, and 
had a red belt or sash swathed round his body; but 
his face was neither black nor copper-color, but swarthy 
sand dingy, and begrimed with soot, as if he had been 
accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a 
shock of coarse black hair, that stood out from his head 
in all directions, and bore an axe on his shoulder. 
He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great 

TO red eyes. 

"What are you doing on my grounds?" said the 
black man, with a hoarse growling voice. 

" Your grounds ! " said Tom with a sneer ; " no more 
your grounds than mine ; they belong to Deacon 

15 Peabody." 

" Deacon Peabody be d — d," said the stranger, " as 
I flatter myself he will be, if he does not look more to 
his own sins and less to those of his neighbors. Look 
yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring." 

20 Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, 
and beheld one of the great trees, fair and flourishing 
without, but rotten at the core, and saw that it had 
been nearly hewn through, so that the first high wind 
was likely to blow it down. On the bark of the tree 

25 was scored the name of Deacon Peabody, an eminent 
man, who had waxed wealthy by driving shrewd bar- 
gains with the Indians. He now looked around, and 
found most of the tall trees marked with the name of 
some great man of the colony, and all more or less 

30 scored by the axe. The one on which he had been 
seated, and which had evidently just been hewn down, 
bore the name of Crowninshield : and he recollected a 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 109 

mighty rich man of that name, who made a vulgar 
display of wealth, which it was whispered he had ac- 
quired by buccaneering. 

"He's just ready for burning! " said the black man, 
with a growl of triumph. " You see I am likely to 5 
have a good stock of firewood for winter." 

"But what right have you," said Tom, "to cut down 
Deacon Peabody's timber ? " 

a rpj^g right of a prior claim," said the other. " This 
woodland belonged to me long before one of your white- 10 
faced race put foot upon the soil." 

" And pray, who are you, if I may be so bold ? " said 
Tom. 

" Oh, I go by various names. I am the wild hunts- 
man in some countries ; the black miner in others. In 15 
this neighborhood I am known by the name of the 
black woodsman. I am he to whom the red men con- 
secrated this spot, and in honor of whom they now 
and then roasted a white man, by way of sweet-smell- 
ing sacrifice. Since the red men have been exter- 20 
minated by you white savages, I amuse myself by pre- 
siding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists ; 
I am the great patron and promoter of slave-dealers, 
and the grand-master of the Salem witches." 

" The upshot of all which is, if I mistake not," said 25 
Tom, sturdily, "you are he commonly called Old 
Scratch." 

"The same, at you service! " replied the black man, 
with a half civil nod. 

Such was the opening of this interview, according to 7P 
the old story ; though it has almost too familiar an air 
to be credited. One would think that to meet with 



no TALES OF A TRAVELER 

such a singular personage, in this wild, lonely place, 
would have shaken any man's nerves ; but Tom was a 
hard- minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had 
lived so long with a termagant wife that he did not 
5 even fear the devil. 

It is said that after this commencement they had a 
long and earnest conversation together, as Tom re- 
turned homeward. The black man told him of great 
sums of money buried by Kidd the pirate, under the 

10 oak-trees on the high ridge, not far from the morass. 
All these were under his command, and protected by 
his power, so that none could find them but such as 
propitiated his favor. These he offered to place within 
Tom Walker's reach, having conceived an especial 

1 5 kindness for him; but they were to be had only on 
certain conditions. What these conditions were may 
be easily surmised, though Tom never disclosed them 
publicly. They must have been very hard, for he re- 
quired time to think of them, and he was not a man 

20 to stick at trifles when money was in view. When 
they had reached the edge of the swamp, the stranger 
paused — " What^proof have I that all you have been 
telling me is true?" said Tom. "There's my signa- 
ture," said the black man, pressing his finger on Tom's 

25 forehead. So saying, he turned off among the thickets 
of the swamp, and seemed, as Tom said, to go down, 
down, down, into the earth, until nothing but his head 
and shoulders could be seen, and so on, until he totally 
disappeared. 

30 When Tom reached home, he found the black print 
of a finger burnt, as it were, into his forehead, w^hich 
nothing could obliterate. 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER iii 

The first news his wife had to tell him was the sud- 
den death of Absalom Crowninshield, the rich buc- 
aneer. It was announced in the papers with the 
usual flourish, that "A great man had fallen in Israel." 

Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had 5 
just hewn down, and which was ready for burning, 
"Let the freebooter roast," said Tom, "who cares?" 
He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen 
was no illusion. 

He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence ; 10 
but as this was an uneasy secret, he willingly shared 
it with her. All her avarice was awakened at the 
mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to 
comply with the black man's terms, and secure what 
would make them wealthy for life. However Tom 15 
might have felt disposed to sell himself to the Devil, 
he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife ; so 
he flatly refused, out of the mere spirit of contradic- 
tion. Many and bitter were the quarrels they had on 
the subject; but the more she talked, the more resolute 20 
was Tom not to be damned to please her. 

At length she determined to drive^the bargain on her 
own account, and if she succeeded, to keep all the gain 
to herself. Being of the same fearless temper as her 
husband, she set off for the old Indian fort towards 25 
the close of a summer's day. She was many hours 
absent. When she came back, she was reserved and 
sullen in her replies. She spoke something of a black 
man, whom she had met about twilight, hewing at the 
root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and would 30 
not come to terms : she was to go again with a propi- 
tiatory offering, but what it was she forebore to say. 



1 1 2 TALES OF A TRA VELER 

The next evening she set off again for the swamp, 
with her apron heavily laden. Tom waited and waited 
for her, but in vain ; midnight came, but she did not 
make her appearance : morning, noon, night returned, 

5 but still she did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for 
her safety, especially as he found she had carried off 
in her apron the silver tea-pot and spoons, and every 
portable article of value. Another night elapsed, an- 
other morning came ; but no wife. In a word, she was 

10 never heard of more. 

What was her real fate nobody knows, in conse- 
quence of so many pretending to know. It is one of 
those facts which have become confounded by a variety 
of historians. Some asserted that she lost her way 

15 among the tangled mazes of the swamp, and sank into 
some pit or slough ; others, more uncharitable, hinted 
that she had eloped with the household booty, and 
made off to some other province ; while others sur- 
mised that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal 

20 quagmire, on the top of which her hat was found 
lying. In confirmation of this, it was said a great 
black man, with an axe on his shoulder, was seen late 
that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying 
a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly 

25 triumph. 

The most current and probable story, however, ob- 
serves, that Tom Walker grew so anxious about the 
fate of his wife and his property, that he set out at 
length to seek them both at the Indian fort. During 

30 a long summer's afternoon he searched about the 
gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen. He called 
her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to ba 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 113 

heardc The bittern alone responded to his voice, as he 
flew screaming by ; or the bull-frog croaked dolefully 
from a neighboring pool. At length, it is said, just in 
the brown hour of twilight, when the owls began to 
hoot, and the bats to flit about, his attention was at- 5 
tracted by the clamor of carrion crows hovering about 
a cypress-tree. He looked up, and beheld a bundle 
tied in a check apron, and hanging in the branches of 
the tree, with a great vulture perched hard by, as if 
keeping watch upon it. He leaped with joy ; for he 10 
recognized his wife's apron, and supposed it to contain 
the household valuables. 

" Let us get hold of the property," said he consol- 
ingly to himself, "and we will endeavor to do without 
the woman." 15 

As he scrambled up the tree, the vulture spread its 
wide wings, and sailed olf screaming into the deep 
shadows of the forest. Tom seized the checked apron, 
but woeful sight ! found nothing but a heart and liver 
tied up in it ! 20 

Such, according to this most authentic old story, was 
all that was to be found of Tom's wife. She had prob- 
ably attempted to deal with the black man as she 
had been accustomed to deal with her husband ; but 
though a female scold is generally considered a match 25 
for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have 
had the worst of it. She must have died game, how- 
ever; for it is said Tom noticed many prints of cloven 
feet deeply stamped about the tree, and found hand- 
f uls of hair, that looked as if they had been plucked Z^ 
from the coarse black shock of the woodman. Tom 
knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged 



114 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

his shoulders, as he looked at the signs of a fierce 
clapper-clawing. "Egad," said he to himself, "Old 
Scratch must have had a tough time of it ! " 
Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property, 

5 with the loss of his wife, for he was a man of forti- 
tude. He even felt something like gratitude towards 
the black woodman, who, he considered, had done him 
a kindness. He sought, therefore, to cultivate a 
further acquaintance with him, but for some time 

10 without success; the old black-legs played shy, for 
whatever people may think, he is not always to be had 
for calling for : he knows how to play his cards when 
pretty sure of his game. 

At length, it is said, when delay had whetted Tom's 

15 eagerness to the quick, and prepared him to agree to 
anything rather than not gain the promised treasure, 
he met the black man one evening in his usual wood- 
man's dress, with his axe on his shoulder, sauntering 
along the swamp, and humming a tune. He affected 

20 to receive Tom's advances with great indifference, 
made brief replies, and went on humming his tune. 

By degrees, however, Tom brought him to business, 
and they began to haggle about the terms on which 
the former was to have the pirate's treasure. There 

25 was one condition which need not be mentioned, being 
generally understood in all cases where the devil 
grants favors ; but there were others about which, 
though of less importance, he was inflexibly obstinate. 
He insisted that the money found through his means 

3° should be employed in his service. He proposed, 
therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black 
traffic ; that is to say, that he should fit out a slave- 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 115 

ship. This, however, Tom resolutely refused : he was 
bad enough in all conscience ; but the devil himself 
could not tempt him to turn slave-trader. 

Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he did not 
insist upon it, but proposed, instead, that he should 5 
turn usurer ; the devil being extremely anxious for the 
increase of usurers, looking upon them as his peculiar 
people. 

To this no objections were made, for it was just to 
Tom's taste. 10 

" You shall open a broker's shop in Boston next 
month," said the black man. 

"I'll do it to-morrow, if you wish," said Tom 
Walker. 

" You shall lend money at two per cent, a month." 15 

" Egad, I'll charge four ! " replied Tom Walker. 

" You shall extort bonds, foreclose mortgages, drive 
the merchant to bankruptcy " 

" I'll drive him to the d-^ — 1," cried Tom Walker. 

" You are the usurer for my money ! " said the black- ao 
legs with delight. "When will you want the rhino?" 

" This very night." 

"Done ! " said the devil. 

" Done ! " said Tom Walker. So they shook hands 
and struck a bargain. 25 

A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated behind 
his desk in a counting-house in Boston. 

His reputation for a ready-moneyed man, who would 
lend money out for a good consideration, soon spread 
abroad. Everybody remembers the time of Governor 30 
Belcher, when money was particularly scarce. It was 
a time of paper credit. The country had been deluged 



Ii6 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

with government bills, the famous Land Bank had 
been established ; there had been a rage for speculat- 
ing ; the people had run mad with schemes for new 
settlements ; for building cities in the wilderness ; land- 
5 jobbers went about with maps of grants, and town- 
ships, and Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but 
which everybody was ready to purchase. In a word, 
the great speculating fever which breaks out every now 
and then in the country had raged to an alarming 

10 degree, and everybody was dreaming of making sudden 
fortunes from nothing. As usual the fever had sub- 
sided; the dream had gone off, and the imaginary 
fortunes with it; the patients were left in doleful 
plight, and the whole country resounded with the con- 

15 sequent cry of "hard times." 

At this propitious time of public distress did Tom 
Walker set up as usurer in Boston. His door was 
soon thronged by customers. The needy and advent- 
urous ; the gambling speculator ; the dreaming land- 

20 jobber; the thriftless tradesman; the merchant with 
cracked credit ; in short, every one driven to raise 
money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices, 
hurried to Tom Walker. 

Thus Tom was the universal friend of the needy, and 

25 acted like a " friend in need ; " that is to say, he always 
exacted good pay and good security. In proportion to 
the distress of the applicant was the hardness of his 
terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages ; gradu- 
ally squeezed his customers closer and closer ; and sent 

30 them at length, dry as a sponge, from his door. 

1 . Land Bank. A scheme in Massachusetts by which paper money, re- 
deemable at a remote date, was issued, with mortgages on land at a low rate 
of interest as security, Governor Belcher >vas in office from 1730 to 1741, 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 117 

In this way he made money hand over hand ; became 
a rich and mighty man, and exalted his cocked hat 
upon 'Change. He built himself, as usual, a vast 
house, out of ostentation ; but left the greater part of 
it unfinished and unfurnished, out of parsimony. He 5 
even set up a carriage in the fullness of his vainglory, 
though he nearly starved the horses which drew it ; 
and as the ungreased w^heels groaned and screeched on 
the axle-trees, you would have thought you heard the 
souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing. 10 

As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. 
Having secured the good things of this world, be began 
to feel anxious about those of the next. He thought 
with regret on the bargain he had made with his black 
friend, and set his wits to work to cheat him out of 15 
the conditions. He became, therefore, all of a sudden, 
a violent church-goer. He prayed loudly and strenu- 
ously, as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs. 
Indeed, one might always tell when he had sinned 
most during the week, by the clamor of his Sunday 30 
devotion. The quiet Christians who had been mod- 
estly and steadfastly traveling Zionward were struck 
with self-reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly 
outstripped in their career by this new-made convert. 
Tom was as rigid in religious as in money matters ; he ?5 
was a stern supervisor and censurer of his neighbors, 
and seemed to think every sin entered up to their 
account became a credit on his own side of the page. 
He even talked of the expediency of reviving the per- 
secution of Quakers and Anabaptists. In a word, 30 
Tom's zeal became as notorious as his riches. 

Still, in spite of all this strenuous attention to forms, 



Ii8 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

Tom had a lurking dread that the devil, after all, would 
have his due. That he might not be taken unawares, 
therefore, it is said he always carried a small Bible in 
his coat' pocket. He had also a great folio Bible on his 
5 counting-house desk, and would frequently be found 
reading it when people called on business ; on such 
occasions he would lay his green spectacles in the book, 
to mark the place, while he turned round to drive some 
usurious bargain. 

10 Some say that Tom grew a little crack-brained in 
his old days, and that fancying his end approaching, he 
had his horse new shod, saddled and bridled, and buried 
with his feet uppermost ; because he supposed that at 
the last day the world would be turned upside down; 

15 in which case he should find his horse standing ready 
for mounting, and he was determined at the worst to 
give his ol.d friend a run for it. This, however, is prob- 
ably a mere old wives' fable. If he really did take 
such a precaution, it was totally superfluous ; at least 

20 so says the authentic old legend, which closes his story 
in the following manner. 

One hot summer afternoon in the dog-days, just as a 
terrible black thundergust was coming up, Tom sat in 
his counting-house in his white linen cap and India 

25 silk morning-gown. He was on the point of foreclosing 
a mortgage, by which he would complete the ruin of 
an unlucky land speculator for whom he had professed 
the greatest friendship. The poor land-jobber begged 
him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had 

30 grown testy and irritated, and refused another day. 
" My family will be ruined, and brought upon the 
parish," said the land-jobber. "Charity begins at 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 119 

home," replied Tom ; " I must take care of myself in 
these hard times." 

" You have made so much money out of me," said 
the speculator. 

Tom lost his patience and his piety — " The devil take 5 
me," said he, " if I have made a farthing ! " 

Just then there were three loud knocks at the street 
door. He stepped out to see who was there. A black 
man was holding a black horse, which neighed and 
stamped with impatience. 10 

"Tom, you're come for," said the black fellow, 
gruffly. Tom shrunk back, but too late. He had left 
his little Bible at the bottom of his coat-pocket, and 
his big Bible on the desk buried under the mortgage 
he was about to foreclose: never was sinner taken 15 
more unawares. The black man whisked him like a 
child into the saddle, gave the horse the lash, and away 
he galloped, with Tom on his back, in the midst of the 
thunderstorm. The clerks stuck their pens behind 
their ears, and stared after him from the windows. 20 
Away went Tom Walker, dashing down the streets ; 
his white cap bobbing up and down ; his morning- 
gown fluttering in the wind, and his steed striking fire 
out of the pavement at every bound. When the clerks 
turned to look for the black man he had disappeared. 25 

Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mort- 
gage. A countryman who lived on the border of the 
swamp reported that in the height of the thundergust 
he had heard a great clattering of hoofs and a howling 
along the road, and running to the window caught 30 
sight of a figure, such as I have described, on a horse 
that galloped like mad across the fields, over the hills, 



I20 TALES OF A TRAVELER 

and down into the black hemlock swamp towards the 
old Indian fort ; and that shortly after a thunderbolt 
falling in that direction seemed to set the whole forest 
in a blaze. 

5 The good people of Boston shook their heads and 
shrugged their shoulders, but had been so much accus- 
tomed to witches, and goblins, and tricks of the devil, 
in all kinds of shapes, from the first settlement of the 
colony, that they were not so much horror-struck as 

10 might have been expected. Trustees were appointed 
to take charge of Tom's effects. There was nothing, 
however, to administer upon. On searching his coffers 
all his bonds and mortgages were found reduced to 
cinders. In place of gold and silver his iron chest was 

15 filled with chips and shavings ; two skeletons lay in his 
stable instead of his half-starved horses, and the very 
next day his great house took fire and was burnt to the 
ground. 

Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten 

20 wealth. Let all griping money-brokers lay this story 
to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted. The 
very hole under the oak-trees, whence he dug Kidd's 
money, is to be seen to this day ; and the neighboring 
swamp and old Indian fort are often haunted in stormy 

25 nights by a figure on horseback, in morning-gown and 
white cap, which is doubtless the troubled spirit of the 
usurer. In fact, the story has resolved itself into a 
proverb, and is the origin of that popular saying, so 
prevalent throughout New England of " The Devil and 

30 Tom Walker." 



Maynard's German Texts 

A Series of German School Texts 

CAREFULLY EDITED BY SCHOLARS FAMILIAR WITH 
THE NEEDS OF THE CLASS-ROOM 

The distinguishing features of the Series are as follows : 

The Texts are chosen only from modern German authors, in 
order to give the pupil specimens of the language as it is now 
written and spoken. The German prose style of the present 
differs so largely from that of the classical period of German 
literature, from which the books in the hands of pupils are gener- 
ally taken, that the want of such texts must have been felt by 
every teacher of German. 

Each volume contains, either in excerpt or in extenso^ a piece 
of German prose which, whilst continuous enough to sustain inter- 
est, will not be too long to be finished in the work of a term or two. 

The Series is composed of two progressive courses, the Ele- 
mentary and the Advanced. Some of the volumes of the Elementafy 
Course contain, in addition to the notes, a coaiplete alphabetical 
vocabulary. In the remaining volumes of the Series difficulties of 
meaning, to which the ordinary school dictionaries offer no clew, 
are dealt with in the notes at the end of each book. 

In order not to overburden the vocabularies with verbal forms 
occurring in the text, a list of the commoner strong verbs is added 
as an appendix to the volumes of the Elementary Course. 

The modern German orthography is used throughout. 

The same grammatical terminology is used in all the volumes 
of the Series. 

The volumes are attractively bound in cloth, and the type is 
large and clear. 

All the elementary numbers contain a valuable appendix on the 
strong and weak verbs. 

Specimen copies sent by mail on receipt of the price. 

No. I. Ulysses und der Kyklop, from C. F. Beck- 
er's Erzdhlungen aus der Alien Welt, An especially 
easy number. Elementary. 21 pages text, 50 pages 
vocabulary. Cloth, 25 cents. 

No. 2. Fritz auf dem Lande, by Hans Arnold. 
An easy number. Elementary. 2g pages text, 28 pages 
notes, 28 pages vocabulary, 4 pages appendix. Cloth, 
25 cents. 

No. 3. Bilder aus der Tiirkei, from Grube's Geo- 
gr aphis che Characterbilder. Elementary, 28 pages text, 
25 pages notes, 43 pages vocabulary and appendix. 
Cloth, 25 cents. 

No. 4. Weihnachten bei Leberecht Hiinchen, by 
Heinrich Seidel. Elementary, 26 pages text, 36 pages 
notes, 34 pages vocabulary and appendix. Cloth, 25 
cents. 



2 GJEHMAN bvbjlications 

No. 5. Die Wandelnde Glocke, from Der Lahrer 
Hinkende Bote^ by Wilhelm Fischer. Elementary, 33 
pages text, 24 pages notes, 38 pages vocabulary and ap- 
pendix. Cloth, 25 cents. 

No. 6. Der Besuch im Career, Humoreske, by 
Ernst Eckstein. Elementary. 31 pages text, 23 pages 
notes, 30 pages vocabulary and appendix. Cloth, 25 
cents. 

No. 7. Episodes from Andreas Hofer, by Otto 
Hoffman. Elementary. 78 pages text, 18 pages notes. 
Cloth, 25 cents. 

No. 8. Die Werke der Barmherzigkeit, by W. H. 
RiehL Elementary. 60 pages text, 34 pages notes. 
Cloth, 25 cents. 

No. 9. Harold, Trauerspiel in fiinf Akten, by Ernst 
von Wildenbruch. Advanced. 4 pages introduction, 
115 pages text, 18 pages notes. Cloth, 40 cents. 

No. 10. Kolberg, Historisches Schauspiel in fiinf 
Akten, by Paul Heyse. Advanced. 112 pages text, 25 
pages notes. Cloth, 40 cents. 

No. II. Robert Blake (ein Seestlick) und Crom- 
"well, zwei ausgewahlte Aufsatze, by Reinhold Pauli. 
Advanced. 2 pages preface, 93 pages text, 53 pages notes. 
Cloth, 40 cents. 

No. 12. Das deutsche Ordensland Preussen, by 
H. von Treitschke. Advanced. With map, 77 pages 
text, 62 pages notes. Cloth, 40 cents. 

No. 13. Meister Martin Hildebrand, by W. H. 
Riehl. Advanced. An easy volume. 3 pages intro- 
duction, 53 pages text, 35 pages notes. Cloth, 40 cents. 

No. 14. Die Lehrjahre eines Humanisten, by 
W. H. Riehl. Advanced. 55 pages text, 47 pages notes. 
Cloth, 40 cents. 

No. 15. Aus dem Jahrhundert des Grossen Krie- 
ges, by Gustav Freytag. Advanced. 28 pages introduc- 
tion, 85 pages text, 41 pages notes. Cloth, 40 cents. 



Goethe's Italienische Reise. (^Selected 

Letters.) With introduction, 16 pages, map, text, 98 
pages, notes, 48 pages. Edited by H. S. Beresford- 
Webb, Examiner in German {Prelim,) to the University 
of Glasgow, Cloth, 50 cents. 



GJEBMAN :BTIBIjICATIONS 3 

This selection does not profess to cover entirely new ground, as 
only a limited portion of the letters is available for educational 
purposes, the remainder being beyond the reach of ordinary 
students ; but while a few passages have been omitted which the 
editor deemed unsuitable or not sufficiently interesting, a large 
number have been added which have not appeared in previous 
selections. 

Two German Readers 
Easy Readings in German on Familiar 

Subjects. Consisting of 100 Easy German Stories, 89 
pages, with Exercises for re-translation, 31 pages, 
and English-German and German- English vocabularies, 
79 pages. By A. R. Lechner, Senior Master of Modern 
Languages, Modern School, Bedford, England. Cloth, 
50 cents. 

Most of the pieces here have been adapted from English 
sources, so that the probable acquaintance of most young" people 
with the subjects will render them more interesting, and facilitate 
their translation into English. The language used throughout is 
of the simplest kind, and the author has endeavored to use only 
such words as occur in daily life. The same words are frequently 
repeated with the view of impressing them on the memory. 

Beginner's German Translation Book. 

Consisting of German Stories and Anecdotes, 64 pages, 
with Exercises for re-translation, 50 pages, notes, 18 
pages, and German-English and English-German vocab- 
ularies, 99 pages. By H. S. Beresford-Webb, Examiner 
in German {^Prelim.) to the University of Glasgow, 
Cloth, 50 cents. 

The object of this book is, first, to provide a Reading Book for 
beginners, — and for this purpose the passages in Part I. (pp. 1-9) 
have been adapted and arranged in such a manner as to introduce 
the reader gradually to the various forms and constructions of the 
language, — and secondly, to train the learner to utilize his stock 
of knowledge, acquired in translating from the German, by repro- 
ducing sentences similar to those he has read ; in other words, to 
encourage imitation and adaptation. A learner hears or reads a 
construction or phrase, understands it, but is unable, from want 
of practice or confidence, to use it himself. Very often this difficulty 
arises from the necessity of changing slightly the construction, 
and adapting it to what he is desirous of saying. The Exercises 
have therefore been compiled with a view to give constant practice 
in the development of this faculty, and though, of course, this is not 
all that is required when learning a language, it will go a long way 
towards overcoming the difficulties which present themselves to 
the intelligent learner. 



4 GBBMAN PVBIjICATIONa 

Maynardf Merrill, <5t* Co, publish also the following 
standard German books : 

Neuer Leitfaden. By Edwin F. Bacon. Ph.B., 
Professor of Modern Languages at the Oneonta Siate 
Normal School. This book meets a real want by its 
skillful employment of the natural or conversational 
method without the sacrifice of the grammatical thorough- 
ness essential to a complete knowledge of the language. 
It is divided into two parts : the first a conversation 
grammar arranged in concise single-page lessons, re- 
markably convenient for reference ; the second a choice, 
collection of short stories, dialogues, and songs with 
music, to which is added a complete German-English 
vocabulary. 

It is believed that this book, being free from all the 
objections so often urged against the natural method, 
will contribute greatly to the popularity and spread of 
that method. It teaches the grammar ; but it is gram- 
mar by practice, not by rule. The twelve introductory 
lessons are a rare example of ingenuity in the conver- 
sational presentation of the elements of the language, 
and, in the hands of a skillful teacher, are calculated to 
prepare for rapid and intelligent progress through the 
admirable single-page lessons that follow. These lessons 
contain a clear outline, the essentials, of the grammar 
without that minuteness of detail which renders so many 
text-books in language too bulky for ordinary use or con- 
venient reference. Cloth, $1.25, 

Kostyak and Ader's Deutschland und 

die DeutSChen. The land where German is spoken 
and the people who speak it. An excellent German 
reader. Cloth, 75 cents. 

Neue Anekdoten : Leichte und heitere 

Stlickc. A collection of amusing and instructive anec- 
dotes which furnish excellent material for reading and 
conversation. Boards, 40 cents. 

Maynard, Merrill, & Co., Publishers, 
43, 45, AND 47 East Tenth Street, New York. 



i^immim 



English Classic Series-continued. 



158-159 Iiamb*s Essays. (Selec- 
tions.) 

160-161 Burke's Reflections 'on 
the French Kevolution. 

16^-163 Macaulay's History of 
England, Chapter I. Complete. 

164-165-166 Frescott's Conquest 
of Mexico. (Condensed.) 

New numbers will be added from . 
time to time. 

Single numbers, 32 to 96 pages; 
mailing price, 12 cents per copi/. 

Double numbers, 75 to 158 
pages; mailing price, 24 cents 
per copy. 



SPECIAL NUMBERS. 

Milton's Paradise L.ost. Book I. 

With portrait and biographical sketch 
of Milton, and full introductory and 
explanatory notes. Bound in Boards. 
Mailing price, 30 cents. 

Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I. 
and II. With portrait and bio- 
graphical sketch of Milton, and full 
introductory and explanatory notes. 
Boards. Mailing price, 40 cents. 

Shakespeare Header. Extracts from 
the Plays of Shakespeare, with histori- 
cal and explanatory notes. By C. H. 
Wykes. 160 pp., 16mo, cloth. Mailing 
price, 35 cents. 

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. 
The Prologue. With portrait and 
biographical sketch of the author, 
introductory and explanatory notes, 
brief history of English language to 
time of Chaucer, and glossary. Bound 
in boards. Mailing price. 35 cents. 

Chaucer's The Squieres Tale. With 
portrait and biographical sketch of 
author, glossary, and full explanatory 
notes. Boards. Mailing price, 35 cents. 

Chaucer's The Kiiightes Tale. 
With portrait and biographical sketch 
of author, glossary, and full explan- 
atory notes. Boards. Mailing price, 
40 cents. 

Goldsmith's She Stoops to Con- 
quer. With biographical sketch of 
author, and full explanatory notes. 
Boards. Mailing price, 30 cents. 

Homer's Iliad. Books I. and VI. 
Metrical translation by George How- 
land. With introduction and notes. 
Mailing price, 25 cents. 

Homer's Odyssey. Books I., T., 
IX., and X. Metrical translation by 
George Rowland. With introduction 
and notes. Mailing price ^ 25 cents. 

Horace's The Art of Poetry. Trans- 
lated in verse by George Rowland. 
Mailing price, 25 cents. 

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Edited 
by Peter Parley, with introduction 
and notes. 169 pp. 16mo. Linen. 
Mailing price, 30 cents. 

The Story of the German Iliad, 
with Belated Stories. With a full 
glossary and review of the Influence 
of the Nibelungen Lied through Rich- 
ard Wagner. By Mary E. Burt. 
Illustrated. 128 pages, 12mo, cloth. 
Mailing pricCy 50 cents. 



Special Prices to Teachers. 



Full Descriptive Catalogue sent on application. 



ENGLISH Classic Series. 

KELIiOGG'S EDITIONS. .• 

Shakespeare's Plays. 

Bacb iplai2 in ©ne IDolumc* 

Text Carefully Expurgated for Use in Mixed Classes. 

With Portrait, Notes, Introduction to Shakespeare's Grammar, Exam- 
ination Papers and Plan of Study, 

m 

(selected.) 
By BRAINERD KELLOGG, LL.D., 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Polytechnic 

Insitute, author of a ** Text-Book on Rhetoric,^'' a " Text-Book on English 

Literature,'''' and one of the authors of Reed dt Kellogg'' s 

''''Lessons in English.'''' 

The notes of English Editors have been freely used; but they 
have been rigorously pruned, or generously added to, wherever it 
was thought they might better meet the needs of American School 
and College Students. 

We are confident that teachers who examine these editions will 
pronounce them better adapted to the wants of the class-room than 
any others published. These are the only American Editions of 
these Plays that have been carefully expurgated for use in mixed 
classes. 

Printed from large type, attractively bound in cloth, and sold at 
nearly one half the price of other School Editions of Shakespeare. 

The folloiving Plays, each in one volume, are now ready ; 



Merchant of Venice. 

Julius Csesar. 

Macbeth. 

Tempest. 

Hamlet. 

King John. 

Much Ado about Nothing. 

King Henry V. 

King Lear. 

Othello. 

V Mailing price, 30 cents per copy. Special price to TeacJiers, 



King Henry IV., Part I. 

King Henry Vlil. 

Coriolanus. 

As You Like It. 

King Richard IIL 

A Midsummer=Night's Dream. 

A Winter's Tale. 

Twelfth Night. 

Romeo and Juliet. 



